German Shepherd and Fox become friends in Norway

[Beringia]

Last edited Wed Dec 25, 2013, 10:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Tinni the German Shepherd and Sniffer the Fox, story began about a year ago when Torgeir Berge went on a walk with his dog Tinni in a Norwegian forest and met the fox, young Sniffer when he was barely a year old. On Berge and Tinni’s forest walk back in 2012, what they were actually searching for was illegal poison bait, Berge’s partner Berit Helberg tells One Green Earth (OGP).

The use of poison bait has become a problem in Norway, and is contributing to the rapid decline of the country’s already fragile wolf population. According to veterinarian Siri Martinsen of Norwegian animal rights organization, NOAH, 30 to 60 wolves remain in Norway’s wilderness, and only three females are “allowed” to give birth every year. Even with this small population, Martinsen tells OGP that “about half the adult wolves are estimated to be killed illegally … and poison is one of the illegal ways that wolves are killed.”

Searching for and removing poison bait from a local forest is just one way Berge and Tinni are trying to help animals. The team, along with Helberg and now Sniffer, are also working together to educate people about the life of animals in the fur trade and to show the world that “a dog of the forest has the same reactions and movements as the dogs we look at as … man’s best friend,” Helberg writes about the pair. Tinni and Sniffer’s tale and others, including the story about the hunt for poison bait, will be published in 2014 with photos from Berge and text by Helberg. The book will be in both Norwegian and English, since, as Helberg states, “we all live on the same planet and all animals need the voice of … humans.”


http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/heartwarming-friendship-between-a-fox-and-a-dog/

[DBoon]

1. Oh, THAT type of fox

I thought German Shepherds were too smart to watch Fox news.

[cvoogt]

2. But ... what does the fox say??