Care homes can arrange to have specially trained animals visit from organisations like Pets as Therapy — at the home where I work, we regularly have visits from dogs and even a lovely gentle pony!

Dogs need a lot more attention than cats, which is why I generally prefer cats, as they take care of themselves, and go out and play without your having to watch they are not digging up gardens and chasing cars.

Every now and then I've heard of cats like Oscar, who was able to sense when people were dying & would stay with them patiently & comfortingly, so they were never alone in their final hours.

Fascinating, isn't it, how animals can so often sense things we humans can't?

Goats at Taronga zoo went around with a keeper, to visit fellow residents of the zoo from Meerkats to Giraffes, & including elephants and seals.

How could I forget Taronga Zoo's "miracle" baby elephant, Pathi Harn, who came out alive when all the medical evidence suggested he had died in utero — I was working in Sydney at the time and was following the news with amazement!

Indeed, it was a very good animal story, to go with so many other wonderful stories such as the heroism of staff at Mogo Zoo, down near Bateman's Bay, who fought the bushfires, before the fireys could get there, to rescue their entire stock of wild animals.

Just looking that story up (I had heard something about it at the time but had forgotten the details) — how wonderful!

Koala numbers, in particular, will now need careful monitoring, not only in sanctuaries & zoos, after so many died in the bushfires.

Let's hope the bush and all its inhabitants are recovering as well as possible, now that the fires are over.

Medical treatment has enabled as many as seventeen koalas to be returned to the wild, in the past week, having been completely healed of their burns incurred during bushfires.

Now that's some good news in the midst of all the doom and gloom!

Oh, yes, we could always use some good news when we're in the midst of a crisis.

~Wunder

Perhaps there will be good news in the next week.

Question is, when will everything go back to normal?