Animal Lovers

There are no green acres for retired hunting dogs in Ireland. No master's voice calling them home for good. No curling up by the fire to warm those world-weary bones. When she outlived her usefulness in the field, all Merci could expect was a place to curl up and die. The 10-year-old sighthound, also known as a lurcher, found just that in a farmer's shed. Then, unexpectedly, she found mercy. Someone spotted the ailing animal and got in touch with Gina Hetherington, founder of PAWS Animal Rescue Ireland . When they found her, Merci's body was in terrible condition. She was given a medical score of "1," the lowest a dog can get and still breathe — meaning, according to the Veterinary Medicine Center at Ohio State University , there's "no visible body fat" with ribs, pelvic bones and vertebrae "evident from a distance." In a word, she was emaciated. "The fleas were literally crawling off her he...

Maggie with puppies, Hannah and Kari, are seen at Barkers Pet Motel and Grooming in Alberta, Canada in this undated file photo. At a Canadian pet motel and foster care center, a dog broke out of his kennel to comfort and cuddle with two new, frightened, foster puppies on their first night. Maggie, the maternal dog, actually had a litter of her own who were all adopted out of the humane society a little while before she found a loving home. "We think that's why she got so attached to the puppies," Alex Aldred, who works at Barker's Pet Motel and Grooming, where the heartwarming events unfolded, told ABC News. “We’ve never really seen it before, where a dog sneaks out to some puppies and is so excited to see them.” “We left work and then we were watching the surveillance cameras while we were out and we saw Maggie was sitting in front of the puppies' kennels,” Aldred told ABC. Aldred said his mother, Sandy, went back to check on Maggie after seeing throug...