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More Amazing Storiesof God’s Animals and Us

E D I T O R S O F G U I D E P O S T S

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Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

The Promise of LoveBantam Inspirations, Ranie Szilak Burghardt . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Unburdened, Megan Ballinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

When Michael Met Rosie, Claire Guthrie . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Dogs of Peace, Lu Picard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Room for All, Ptolemy Tompkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Wonder Dog, Linda Rae Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Where Bluebirds Sing Again, Frank Newell . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Upstaged! Bill Berloni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Three Little Kittens, Phyllis Hobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Love for Sale, Nancy B. Gibbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Loyal Friend, George Graham Vest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Ordinary HeroesLove Is Blind, Lynn Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Family Hero, Pam Sica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Jeremy’s Choice, Marion Bond West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Trouble in the Night, Kristin von Kreisler . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Lucky Enough! Victoria Ries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Some Service Dog, Brenda Mosley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

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Three of a Kind, Marilyn Sansom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Then Came Shredder, Barbara Aqua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

What Was Needed, Lynn Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

The Boy Who Needed Alex, Lori Shaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Devotion, Doris Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Gifts of FriendshipFirst Love, Janna Graber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Loving Gracie, Melinda Waxler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

A Pigeon Named Homer, Jacqueline Donham . . . . . . . . . 99

Purrrrrfect, Althea Kaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Gulliver Travels, Roberta Sandler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Dixie’s Kitten, Anne Watkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Strange Bedfellows, Marilyn A. Gelman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Then Came Ralph, Kathleen Muldoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Unlikely Friends, Lynn Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Get Well, Kate, Phyllis Hobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Cats Make Us Feel Good, Roger Caras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Amazing AnimalsThe Shedding, Lonnie Hull Dupont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

The Journey, Crystal Ward Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

The Secret Life of Birds, Adam Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

It Happened in Bordentown, Marilyn Carrier . . . . . . . . 142

Lessons from the Pack, Jim Dutcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Country Surprise, Lynn Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Martita’s Door, Lisa Diaz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

One Incredible Journey, Amy Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

The Parrots of January, Rosie Schaap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

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The Delightful Mrs. S, Lynn Seely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Small Miracles, Lonnie Hull Dupont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Part of the PlanA Horse for Haley, Catherine Madera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

A Little Lamb, Janice Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

All Mine, Marion Bond West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

The Turtles of Topsail Island, Jean Beasley . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Bambo, Byron Davenport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Lady & Alexander, Cheryl Christensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Kat Albrecht, Pet Detective, Kat Albrecht . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

The Gift of a Happy Memory, Renie Szilak Burghardt. . . 214

That Day in the Bean Patch, Tim Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

My Little Lamb, Luanne Bandy Holzloehner . . . . . . . . . . 223

Our Hero, Hurricane, Toni Drugmand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Roadblock, Celin Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Sit. Stay. Pray. Rachel Bickford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Living TogetherLeap of Love, Summer Sheldon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Samuel Emmanuel, Sue Kjellsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

A Home for Gus, Crystal Ward Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Love Bird, Linda Wagner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Ditto, Darling, Ginny Greene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Squirrels! Jane Kise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Checkered Past, Marianna K. Tull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

The Return of Roscoe, Shari Smyth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Rio’s Journey, Anne Watkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

The Little Marine, Joan Drage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

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The Promiseof Love

Love animals. God has given them the rudiments of

thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do

not harass them, do not deprive them of their happiness,

do not work against God’s intention.

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Bantam InspirationsRanie Szilak Burghardt

W hen my grandparents—who were raising me—and I landed in arefugee camp in 1947, after World War II, our futures looked bleak. Wewere Hungarian refugees, who had lost our home and country due to thewar. But children can find hope even in the most hopeless situations, andthis was certainly true of me. Displaced Persons Camp Spittal was on theoutskirts of the town of Spittal, Austria. It consisted of old army barracksas far as the eyes could see, and inside the barracks the walls of tiny cubi-cles, where people lived, were made of cardboard. There was a commonkitchen where everyone went for their meals. There were two churches.There were barracks serving as shower and bathroom facilities. And wehad our own school. I spent 1947 through 1951 at D.P. Camp Spittal,growing from a child to a young adolescent.

Camp Spittal was surrounded by another world. A beautiful, nat-ural world of majestic mountains, clear, cold streams, rolling flower-carpeted hills, and small farms dotted with grazing animals. It was thisother world that ignited my imagination with its beauty and filled myheart with hope.

My best friend, Lenka, and I slipped away from the dismal, crowdedworld of the camp as often as we could. We roamed the hills and val-leys, explored and grew to love nature, and shared our hopes and dreams

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while filling our stomachs with wild blueberries or other of nature’s offer-ings. “Someday, I am going to live in the country, in a house among large,shady trees, and I’ll have lots animals around too,” I dreamily would tellLenka.

One day, our ramble took us to a farm nestled at the bottom of apine-covered hill. The farmhouse was alpine in style, and in the neat,flower-filled yard, a woman in a dirndl frock was tossing feed to a flockof colorful bantam chickens.

“Oh, look! Aren’t they adorable?” I said excitedly. Animals, whethertwo- or four-legged, were my passion.

“So you like my little chickens, eh?” The woman said, overhearingme. “Why don’t you open the gate and come and take a closer look.”

We ventured into the yard and introduced ourselves. I sat down inthe grass and made little clucking noises at the small bantams. Soon, atiny white hen and rooster jumped right into my lap and began peckingat the buttons on my shirt. The woman, who told us to call her Gerda,then treated us to generous slices of cherry strudel and tall glasses offresh milk, and when we were ready to leave, she had a surprise for me.

“Since that little hen and rooster seem to have taken a liking to you,I decided to let you keep them,” she said, setting the pair into a smallcrate. I was ecstatic!

“But you don’t have a place to keep chickens,” Lenka reminded meon the way back to the camp.

“I’ll just leave them in the crate tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll figure outsomething else,” I replied, my heart filling with the joy of this new own-ership. I decided to call the pair, Hansel and Gretel.

When I walked into our tiny room in the barrack, my grandfathertook one look at my bantams and bellowed, “You CANNOT keep chick-ens in the barrack!”

“But why not? They are tiny, and I’ll keep them with me wherever Igo,” I said, trying to be convincing. “They won’t be any trouble at all.”

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“It’s summer now, so there is no school. But what about in the fallwhen school begins again?” my grandmother asked.

“I don’t know. But I’ll figure something out by that time,” I quicklyanswered.

“There is nothing to figure out. You cannot keep chickens here. It istoo late now, but tomorrow morning you will return them to where theycame from,” Grandfather ordered sternly, and that was the end of that.

Later that night, as I lay in my cot in the barrack, the pungent odorof chicken litter began drifting up to my nose. So I covered my face withmy blanket, still determined to find a way to keep the diminutive pair.However, at 4:30 that morning, something happened. Something thatfinally made me concede. For Hansel began to crow! He crowed withall the shrill might of a bantam rooster. Grandfather jumped out of bedwith a thud. “What the . . . ” I heard him grumble, while I held on toHansel as hard as I could, for I knew his neck was in grave danger! Mean-while, a pajama-clad crowd began gathering outside our cubicle, andthey didn’t sound very happy. Grandfather went out and apologized pro-fusely, promising it would not happen again. The grumbling crowd shuf-fled back to bed. I dressed and quickly took the crate outside, and waitedfor daylight, while tears streamed down my face. Life seemed so unfair.

Hansel and Gretel were returned to the farm early that morning.When I explained to Gerda what had happened, she laughed so hardthat tears rolled down her rosy cheeks. Finally she said sympathetically,“I tell you what, I will keep them here, but you can come and see themanytime you like.” And that’s just what I did. Hansel and Gretel seemedalways happy to see me, running to me as soon as I appeared, comfortingme with their little clucking noises, as if to say, “We still love you. Weunderstand.” (Ah, kids. What good imaginations they have.)

By the following spring, we received the news we had been hopingfor. We were accepted to immigrate to the United States of America. Ihurried to the farm to tell Gerda.

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“I have heard that everyone has the chance to realize their dream inAmerica,” I told her. “That means that one day I will live in the countryand then I can raise all the bantam chickens that I want.”

And in America, although it took thirty years, that young refugeegirl finally realized her dream, when I moved to the country in 1983.Now, I live in a rustic house shaded by massive oaks and hickories, andin my yard, the happy scratching of my sweet little bantams reminds medaily of Hansel and Gretel, who inspired a dream that finally came true.

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