The story where a spaniel named Poppy was the first to sense something was wrong and saved the life of seven-year-old Thomas French took place in England. The boy has type one diabetes and for several years his parents have been forced to constantly monitor their son's blood sugar levels, The Mirror reports. One day after dinner, Thomas's parents checked his blood glucose level. The test strips showed that the boy's condition was normal. Soon Thomas's mom noticed that their dog Poppy began to behave strangely: she was worried, whining and jumping into her son's arms.

"Half an hour after that, Poppy jumped off the couch, jumped on my partner John's back and started barking. Poppy usually scours the ground when Thomas is unwell, sometimes she seems more persistent, but this time she has never been like that. We checked the son's blood and the device showed the norm. But the dog did not calm down," said Thomas's mother Jennifer Wiberly. 

It turned out that the boy's blood sugar level fell faster than the home tests reacted to it. The parents called the doctors. And Thomas got worse and worse, eventually he lost consciousness. Doctors managed to save the child's life, he was taken to the hospital on the verge of a diabetic coma.

Parents believe that the main credit belongs to Poppy, who was the first to smell his health problems. The mother of three children, Jennifer Wieberly, said her son would not have survived without the puppy's intervention.

"Thomas's blood sugar was dropping faster than the tests could tell us, but we learned to trust Poppy's nose. I truly believe that she saved Thomas from a diabetic coma. I'm so glad we have Poppy to look after him. She lets us sleep at night."  Thomas's mom says.

Spaniel Poppy has been specially trained by the charity to identify dangerous changes in type one diabetics. And the whole family trusts this family member like no one else.

Photos by The Mirror

An unusual and one-of-a-kind shelter "I believe in life" in the village of Kudryashi near Novosibirsk was organized by Tatyana Shelestova. Every horse here has its own story, the journalists of the OTS TV channel tell. Someone was raised for meat, someone lost a sports form and became unnecessary.

"I was working in a private stable in Kudryash, and it just closed. The owner was going to get rid of the horses, and I asked him to give them to me. That's when my first horses were sold to me at the so-called "meat price". I placed the horses at the recreation center, agreed with the director, came up with a project plan for what to do with abandoned horses. It was in December 2006, and that's how the story of my shelter began," says Tatyana Shelestova, head of the I Believe in Life shelter.  

Many of the animals in the shelter are yesterday's athletes, horses are written off due to injuries, and, as a rule, they become unnecessary. So, 24-year-old Agifar turned out to be among the wards of the shelter. In the past, the sports horse took part in competitions and won prizes.

"Agifar is a legendary horse, he reached Europe, won prizes, played for Russia, where he was injured. He had torn ligaments and tendons. And now no one needed him, one owner dragged him as best he could, - Tatyana Shelestova shares. - And not a single athlete who has won medals on it, not once.... I say, at least they could bring a kilogram of carrots, but no." 

There is a cow horse in the shelter. Lyubasha, that's her name, was noticed by summer residents in the meat herd because of the unusual color. They thought it was a cow. The fate of the blue-eyed horse could end in a slaughterhouse. But Tatyana Shelestova collected the money and bought Lyubasha back. Now the animal lives in the shelter in love and care, as well as 14 other horses. And everyone has such a story here. Some grew old and became unnecessary, some were raised for meat, some came here from rental centers.

"All the horses that stand in parks or in the Altai Mountains go to rentals. These are horses with impaired digestion, ulcers, gastritis, all these horses have torn backs and sore legs," Tatiana never tires of repeating.

And in the shelter "I believe in life", animals crippled by man begin a new life. There is a special approach to each, special food and conditions of detention. Tatyana Shelestova has had a love for horses since childhood. As a child, she was engaged in equestrian sports, but realized that it was impossible to treat her wards like exercise machines. It is necessary to negotiate without spurs and a whip.

The animals in the shelter are kept at the expense of the horse riding school organized here and the care of other animals, which has owners. Recently, hippotherapy classes have been held here.    Tatiana does the housework alone. Moreover, she plans to expand the shelter. After all, now not only horses live on the same territory, but also goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats.

Photos from Tatyana Shelestova's personal archive.

A heartbreaking tragedy took place at the end of August in the village of Yurtsovo near Yegoryevsk, writes AIF. At about eight o'clock in the evening, four friends Kirill Petukhov, Nikita Kazak, Ivan Svirin and Ivan Borisov were walking on the street and heard screams. Flames were blazing on the upper floors of the five-storey building. The fire engulfed several apartments, confused residents stood on the street.

"A woman was running in the street and shouting that she had dogs in her apartment. We're after her. There was a lot of smoke in the entrance, but we went up to the fourth floor, there were flames and smoke everywhere, almost nothing was visible. The woman was going to run into the burning apartment, but we stopped her, said that we would do everything ourselves. There were no dogs in sight inside, not with flashlights or anything," Kirill Petukhov says.

According to Nikita Kazak's friend, the guys found Jack Russell's first half-breed dog quickly, then they found a small Pekingese on the balcony. Along the chain, the guys began to pass the tailed ones to each other and then gave them to the hostess. But the third dog could not be found for several minutes, these minutes dragged on like hours in conditions of open fire and heavy smoke. 

"The third dog was the hardest to find. We searched for her for five or six minutes, she hid somewhere under the sofa," Nikita continues. - Kirill and I started to pull her out, she bit us, bit Vanya, but we managed, pulled her out and gave her to the owner."

But the guys did not stop there, they began to take everyone they met out of the entrance. And they helped put out the flames as much as they could.  Residents of other apartments handed us buckets of water, we went into the burning apartment and poured these buckets onto the flames.

Smoke was also pouring out of the windows of another apartment on the fourth floor, and children were crowding on the balcony, holding out their hands and shouting for help. The locals knew that a large family lived there. The door to the burning apartment was open. Flames were coming out of the kitchen. But the guys rushed there without looking back. According to them, it was necessary to navigate by touch.

"There was no fear," Nikita recalls. - The thought of saving the children was just beating in my head. We found the girl. Kirill grabbed her and carried her outside. A pensioner was calling for help in the next apartment. I helped her get outside and ran under the balcony, where the children's screams were still coming from."

The mother and the kids, of whom the oldest was an 11-year-old boy, climbed out onto the balcony. Suddenly, a woman pregnant with her ninth child jumped over the railing in an attempt to escape. Three babies jumped after the mother - they all crashed. The older boy restrained the others, did not let them jump after him to certain death.

"He was standing on the balcony, holding the baby above his head," Nikita recalls. - And threw it to me. I got it." 

According to the guys, when the fire started, the father of eight children jumped out of the apartment in his underwear and ran around the yard screaming for help.

After the fire, the teenagers were taken to the hospital, the guys inhaled carbon monoxide heavily. Ivan Borisov suffered the most. But now the health of the guys is no longer in danger.

The 15-year-old boys graduated from Yurtsovo school No. 8. It is noteworthy that two friends, Nikita and Kirill, are now studying at the college of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and are preparing to become professional rescuers.

Photos of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia in the Moscow region and from the personal archive of the Petukhov, Kazak, Svirin, Borisov families.

Four-year-old German Shepherd, black as tar, in the Mariupol Zoo is only so called - mom for all the animals. This is not the first time Wanda has shown herself to be a wet nurse for big cats! For the first time, Wanda became a foster mother for predators during the military action in Mariupol.

The journalists of the OWL news agency told about how the zoo survived at that time. In the spring of 2022, the Mariupol Zoo found itself in the epicenter of the military action . The Azovstal plant is located literally four kilometers away. Camels, many ungulates, monkeys, ostriches, llamas and a leopard died in the zoo at that time. At this time, a pair of lions had kittens, but their mother refused to feed them. The lioness was afraid of the loud sounds of explosions and left the kids. But quite unexpectedly, the zoo director's dog came to their aid.  

"Wanda had 12 puppies then, she was just full of milk. And so we gave her these newborn lion cubs. And Wanda did not chase them away, but began to feed them with her milk. She raised them, fed them, as well as her children," says the director of the zoo, Savely Vashura.

Now these kittens have become big lions that are no different from their counterparts. However, the Shepherd approaches the cage with predators without any fear. And from the side at this moment you can often hear the phrase: "Wanda, where are your children?"

"In 2020, a small puppy, who was still 2.5 months old, was given to us by the Dog Club, we named her Wanda. So she grew up with me. She grew up by leaps and bounds, slept next to me, was near me all the time. Well, that's how she was, she warmed us all through the war, she slept on our feet, because her body is warmer than we were. We have 12 degrees below zero, it's cold, and it was fun and warm with Wanda," the director of the Mariupol zoo shares his memories.

The Mariupol Zoo is a private structure. All animals are kept here at their own expense, the zoo survives by selling tickets and the cafe, which is located on the territory. After the shelling, the birds even stopped laying here; it took two years for the birds to recover and return to normal life.

According to Savely Vashura, almost the whole of Russia is helping them now. The Moscow Zoo presented a lynx and an owl, the Rostov Zoo gave three capuchin monkeys, a baboon, a maned ram and a llama. A bird and monkeys arrived from Penza. And from St. Petersburg – the Ussuri tiger cub.

Well, Wanda has already firmly occupied her niche in the Mariupol zoo as a wet nurse for everyone who was left without a mother. And just recently, footage of Wanda feeding a predator again flew all over the Internet. This time it's a tiger cub.

Photos from the personal archive of Savely Vashura.