“I have never seen a nurturing side of her with other animals.”
Winnie is a goofy Great Dane who loves every human she meets, but she’s never been a fan of other animals. When her parents discovered two orphaned kittens in some bushes and brought them home, they had no idea how she would react.
They hoped she would be indifferent at best — but her actual reaction was beyond anything they could have imagined.
Lisa Gerken
“I showed Winnie the kittens right away and read her body language heavily … I have never seen a nurturing side of her with other animals,” Lisa Gerken, Winnie’s mom, told The Dodo. “By the second day, Winnie had the kittens crawling up to cuddle, and by the third day, they were trying to nurse her. Bless her heart, she had nothing but comfort to offer them, and in all honesty, that was all they needed.”
For whatever reason, the tiny orphaned kittens brought out a motherly side to Winnie that her family had never seen before. She immediately became protective of them and wanted nothing more than to love on them as much as she could.
Lisa Gerken
“Her favorite thing to do with them is smell them,” Gerken said. “It makes me think of humans and how they are obsessed with smelling newborns. She will just shove her nose on them and smell them.”
Lisa Gerken
Unfortunately, the family already has four cats, so adopting the kittens wasn’t an option. They have since found their forever homes — and Winnie has found her calling as a foster mom to kittens in need.
“After watching Winnie interact with these kittens, I will be looking into fostering more kittens in the future,” Gerken said. “She obviously has a gift with nurturing these babies.”
