He also sets muskrat traps in the river and runs over woodchucks and possums on the road. An amiable man who loves his grandchildren, the neighbor has built the children a tree platform where they can sit silently and shoot at the deer who come to the river to drink at twilight.
The hunters shot at the javelina because it was there, which is the same reason a neighbor who lives downriver from me catches all the trout within hours of the time the state fish and wildlife service stocks the stream. And because the meat of a javelina is too strong-tasting to be palatable, they were not interested in it for food. What is amazing about the report is not that the animal was Bubba-it was not-but that the hunters shot three times at a creature that was not big enough or wild enough to be a threat to them and that did not provide sport by running. When all three arrows failed to strike home, one of the men ventured close enough to pet the animal and found it was tame and welcomed the attention. The animal stood still, gazing at the men, while they shot at it three times. The Thornes recently sent a clipping from their local newspaper describing how a group of men out hunting with bows and arrows came upon a javelina.
Months after their javelina disappeared, Patsy and Buddy Thorne were still roaming ranch lands in Texas, Bubba’s favorite chocolate in their pockets, searching for their wild pig. Gene Fleming fashioned shoes for a goose born without feet and supported the goose in a harness until he learned to walk.
Nancy Topp struggled for weeks to get a seventeen-year-old dog home across fifteen hundred miles. What the stories have in common is the love and caring that can exist between animals and people. In this charming collection of nineteen stories, you can't help but fall in love with the unlucky fawn who is saved by a nursing home, the troublesome rabbit who warms her way into a new family and the good (German) shepherd who comforts the sick.These are stories of hope, humor, triumph, loyalty, compassion, life and even death-but most of all, these are stories of love and the extraordinary animals who make our lives the richer for it.Īll the stories in this book are about animals, and all are true.