The myth that dogs and cats don’t get a long has been busted
wide open at the home of Jennifer McArthur in South Kitsap. Her
little dog Pappi not only plays with the family’s cat, but has
played wet nurse to “Skinny” ever since she and her litter mates
were orphaned last summer.
The six kittens were four weeks old when their mother disappeared
out doors. The kittens snuggled up to Pappi looking for milk, and
Pappi delivered, even though she herself has never been
pregnant.
“She’s very, very friendly,” said McArthur. “She’d play with the
kittens, then lay right down and start nursing them. She had hardly
any nipple, and somehow, they nursed on her just enough to produce
milk. And now she has four nipples.”
McArthur, during a recent interview, demonstrated Pappi’s uncanny
talent with a gentle squeeze on one nipple, producing a shiny bead
of white liquid.
“I’ve heard of such things before,” said Katrina Dunning of La
Leche League of Central Kitsap. “I’ve heard of a horse nursing a
goat.”
As for Pappi’s never having been pregnant, that was old news to
Dunning, who said suckling alone can stimulate the mammary glands
of any animal, including humans, to produce milk.
Jack Newman, a Toronto physician who works with breast-feeding
mothers, also wasn’t surprised by Pappi’s gift. His practice
includes a number of patients seeking to nurse adopted infants. At
his clinic, the regimen to induce lactation in women who have not
given birth to their children involves the use of drugs and
stimulation of the nipple. Some women have reported milk production
with suckling alone. Even men can produce milk (usually in relation
to medications they might be taking), Newman said.
“I would imagine there is no reason animals couldn’t lactate even
if never pregnant,” said Newman, speculating on Pappi’s case. “Not
surprising that a couple of the kittens might want to continue.
Breast-feeding is much more than milk, and these kittens did lose
their mother. The kittens probably see this dog as their mother and
want to keep the bond and security that they lost when the mother
cat left.”
Nursing a littler of kittens doesn’t seem to have harmed Pappi, who
is a bright-eyed bundle of exuberance. When the kittens were
little, McArthur gave Pappi vitamins and all the food she wanted,
and little dog remained healthy even as the kittens got bigger than
her. The family decided to keep Skinny, who was the runt of the
litter, and the dog and cat have remained close … really close.
Pappi and Skinny’s bond has long since outgrown the issue of
nutrition, and McArthur has tried to discourage their little
sessions, but to no avail.
“We catch them at it,” McArthur said. “If they hear us coming,
they’ll stop.”
Skinny’s interest in her surrogate mother is evident. As McArthur
held the little dog in her lap, the lanky cat pawed possessively at
her feathery tail.
Besides her canine mama, Skinny has a pit bull auntie.
Four-year-old Kirra, who is spayed, can’t give her quite what Pappi
does, but she still showers her, quite literally, with maternal
affection.
“I have really really good pets,” said McArthur. “When mama gave
birth to the babies in my closet, Kirra was in there cleaning them
with the mama.”
The instance of cross-species nurturing is nothing new. Koko, the
famous gorilla who learned sign language, gave tender care to her
pet kitten, Ball. Then there was the case of the baby hippopotamus,
orphaned in the 2004 tsunami, who was “mothered” by a 100-year-old
male tortoise at a wildlife park in Nairobi.
“The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its
mother,” said ecologist Paula Kahumbu of Lafarge Park, Nairobi, in
an article Aug. 19, 2005, in the Agence France-Presse. “If somebody
approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if
protecting its biological mother.”
The two swim, eat and sleep together she said.
The idea of a dog nursing a cat shouldn’t seem so strange, said
Dunning.
“Really it’s no odder than us drinking cow’s milk. Talk about cross
species!” she said. “It’s a case of nature knows best. I just think
a mother’s love has no bounds.”
