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| nankerphelge |
Onlookers at a West Side funeral home's nativity scene featuring live animals have a new attraction to ewe and awe over after Charleston firefighters helped deliver a baby sheep.
Battalion Chief Eric Kessler said the department was notified by the 911 Center about 11:30 a.m. Sunday that a sheep in the holiday scene at Bartlett-Burdette- Cox Funeral Home on Tennessee Avenue was in labor.
Kessler began calling people with the department who had experience birthing animals. Unable to locate anyone, he began searching for local veterinarians. Initially, no one was available, but he managed to find a doctor through an emergency list. Kessler couldn't remember the veterinarian's name today.
"The sheep was slinging around, trying to get the baby out of her," Kessler said of the ewe's condition when crews arrived. "A crowd was starting to gather, and it was starting to become a spectacle."
They managed to deliver the lamb, but Kessler said he and the rest of the impromptu veterinary assistants were not out of the woods yet.
"The baby was cold and sluggish," Kessler said. "We took her inside the funeral home and wrapped her in hot towels and heat packs."
The new arrival eventually began to warm and starting taking a bottle, Kessler said. The lamb was fine when crews cleared the scene. Both the mother and baby now are part of the nativity scene.
The same nativity scene was in the news last week when an East Bank man was arrested after police allegedly found him having sex with one of the sheep. The man was charged with trespassing, cruelty to animals and destruction of property. |
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| gypsy |
Joey can be such a bastard sometimes. |
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| telecaster |
But is it worse than a women who nursed puppies?
Woman who nursed puppies has no regrets
A young Norwegian mother who took a litter of puppies to her own breast when her dog died giving birth remains proud of her unusual move. Now, six weeks later, both her infant son and eight of the puppies that survived are crawling around the family's Christmas tree in Siggerud, west of Oslo.
Kine Skiaker, her son Emil and eight puppies are celebrating Christmas at the Skiaker home west of Oslo.
PHOTO: OLAV OLSEN
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"I've had lots of reaction, mostly positive," Kine Skiaker tells newspaper Aftenposten. But Skiaker also had to tolerate some less-than-flattering remarks.
"No one has complained to me directly, but I've heard from others that some people thought it was disgusting that I would nurse Emil (her son) and the puppies at the same time," she said. "I just have to tolerate that, and can only say that I washed myself thoroughly after I'd nursed the puppies."
Skiaker says she's also been told by experts that she helped save the puppies' lives. "That makes me feel good," she said. "Then I can accept that some think what I did was nauseating."
The drama began Friday November 8 when Skiaker's Canarian Warren Hound, named Aida, started giving birth to a litter of 14 puppies. Suddenly the puppies stopped coming and the next stop was the vet's office.
In the end, both Aida and three of the puppies died, while another three died later.
Those that survived were in desperate need of nourishment, and that's when Skiaker impulsively took them to her breast. She fed them over that first weekend, until surrogate mother dogs could be found to take over.
Today, the eight surviving puppies (four males and four females) are back in the Skiaker's home and in good health. So is baby Emil, now five months old and happy to play with his canine comrades in the Skiakers' living room.
One of the puppies will be soon be delivered to new owners in Kongsberg. She's the only one with a name, so far, and it's Aida, after her late mother.
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