TERRIER BECOMES ADOPTED MOTHER TO ORPHANED KITTENS

as reported in KINGSPORT TENNESSEE TIMES NEWS, December 2, 2005

ROSE HILL-  When Lacey Yeary and her mom, Verlinda, brought home an abandoned kitten back in the summer, they had some concern that their dog Teensy - a Jack Russell terrier and feist mix - might not accept the tiny creature, which still needed to be bottle-fed.

But not only was Teensy a gracious host with her home, the curious canine went from lovable mutt to loving mother in a matter days.  In just over a week, Teensy began producing milk and took over the duties of nursing the tiny kitten.  A few months later - still feeding Butterscotch, as he came to be known - Teensy adopted another litter of four kittens.

Unfortunately, only one of the latter litter survived, but Teensy still feeds, grooms and otherwise cares for her mismatched brood as if she'd given them birth herself.

Now if she could only teach the kittens to bark.

According to Lacey, the unlikely family began when, "Mamaw's dog drug Butterscotch up on her porch.  We brought him home so we could bottle-feed him.  Teensy started sniffing the kitten, then started nursing him, and we didn't need to bottle-feed him anymore," said the 13-year-old animal lover in summing up the situation.

Verlinda said the kitten appeared to be about two weeks old when they brought it home from her mother's Gibson Station home, and within minutes the dog, which at nine months old was not much more than a puppy herself, began inspecting the tiny feline.  Within a few more minutes Teensy was grooming her new housemate.

By the next day, Verlinda said, the dog was protecting and mothering the kitten as though it was her very own baby.

Teensy became such a protective mother that she didn't want Lacey playing with Butterscotch.

"I'm a girl, and I want to hold my cat.  But if I'd pick him up, she'd bark and whine till I put him down, so I'd sneak him in my room and hold it.  She'd sit outside the door and bark until I came out.  I'd put her in a box by thecouch and watch TV, and when I'd look for him, Teensy had taken him out by the neck, carried him to my room, and hid him under the bed where I couldn't get him."

About a week after Butterscotch's arrival, said Verlinda, Teensy came in heat, and apparently her motherly instincts caused her hormones to kick in and the dog bagan lactacting.  Young Butterscotch had already followed his instincts and had been trying to nurse.  After he discovered where quick meals were ready on demand, the Yearys abandoned their efforts with the bottle.

Fast forward about three months.

Lacey's cousin had a cat that abandoned four kittens - including one named Morgan - when they were about a week old.  With hopes that Teensy would take care of them, Verlinda brought them home in a box.

When she placed it on the floor, the little dog took each kitten from the box and began grooming them.

Despite the adoptive mother's best efforts, three of the kittens died, leaving Morgan alone with Butterscotch as his only sibling.

Lacey surmises that Teensy is such a good mother to the kittens because she's been around other cats in the home since she was a puppy.

"I guess she figured it was her responsibility," she said.

Jonesville veterinarian Dr. Mike Rowland said while such situations are not unheard of, they are rare.

There could be two explanations for the dog to start lactating, he said, but for her to take on not one, but two, litters required a srtong mothereing instinct.

Rowland said if Butterscotch had been attempting to nurse for  a week or more, the stimulation to her breasts could have caused a hormonal realease by the brain.  This caused the production of prolactin, which caused her to produce milk.

The vet said since the dog had previously been in heat, it is possible that she was having a false pregnancy - a unique condition to dogs - and she could have started producing milk at the end of the false pregnancy cycle.  Teensy could have even been producing milk when Butterscotch arrived, he surmised.

Whaterver the reason, it doesn't really matter to Lacey.

"As long as it saves Morgan and Butterscotch, I'm fine with it," said Lacey, who declares the interspecies adoption has not caused any  identity crises among the critters.

"They know they're cats, she knows she's a dog, and they know she's their mommy," she smiled.