ANIMALS

Lost Dog Reunites with Family After a Year, Leads Them to a Pipe, and Reveals Heartwarming Surprise

During the past summer, Kota Bean, an energetic yellow Lab, got out of the family’s backyard after a storm messed up the electric fence meant to keep her secure. Initially, it wasn’t a big problem because she had escaped many times before and always managed to return promptly.

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

Kota’s mom, Kellie Deck Tuten, shared on Facebook, “Kota has always been an escape artist. We have been through countless crates, kennels, cages, and all sorts of ways to contain her during the very few hours we needed her contained.”

Since she’s clever, whenever she got out, she’d usually stick around and come back home by herself if her parents couldn’t locate her. The family never had to stress about this lovable dog. However, this time was unusual—night came, and Kota was missing.

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

Worried about their furry friend, the Tutens immediately started a thorough search. They handed out flyers and reached out to nearby shelters. Unfortunately, despite their ongoing efforts, a whole year passed without any sign of Kota.

Just when the family was about to lose all hope, they found a familiar face on the Bibb County Animal Shelter‘s website. “They shared it with a general location in the description, and that’s when I saw her,” Tuten wrote. “I KNEW it was her.”

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

Excited and hopeful, she reached out to a friend in the area who had seen Kota but couldn’t catch her. Another person named Lisa Wood joined in as a helper. Lisa had been looking after Kota and her two sets of puppies for a while. Wood mentioned that Kota had been pregnant up to three times during her time on the streets.

“[L]isa Wood … had been feeding my dog twice a day, took in her (not 1 but 2 litters of) puppies and found them all loving homes,” Tuten wrote.

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

Unfortunately, even though Wood had been looking after Kota, she didn’t know where her latest set of puppies (the third one) was. Later on, Wood and the Tutens teamed up to find these little ones. They put a GPS collar on Kota and followed her until they reached a drain pipe.

“[K]ota ran up to [a] drain pipe and sniffed and then ran back several feet and laid down,” Tuten wrote. “[W]e were pretty certain the puppies were in there … but we couldn’t hear or see them.”

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

With the assistance of friends Amy Beth Wall and Sean Wall, the team eventually opened up the tunnel to better reach the little family. After putting in hours of effort, four chubby puppies were safely reunited with the family.

While the puppies adjusted fast to their new environment, Kota took some time to feel comfortable letting everyone approach her. Eventually, she chose to trust, hopped into the car with her puppies, and went back home, although she still remains cautious.

Image source: Kellie Deck Tuten

“She is still warming back up to us,” Tuten shared. “It’s been hard for us because it just makes it seem like she’s unhappy here, but I think it’s more so that she’s still traumatized from having to fight to be safe.”

It’s great that Kota is back home, and right now, the family is focused on being there for her during her healing journey. They’re patient, hoping that one day she’ll be just as grateful as their beloved Lab used to be.

Meet Kota’s Adorable Puppies – Take a Peek if You’re Curious!

ANIMALS

Amazing Video of Unseen Ocean Creatures in the Ningaloo Canyons

The Schmidt Ocean Institute recently explored the Ningaloo Canyons on the western coast of Australia using a robotic underwater vehicle called the ROV Sebastian. Check out the amazing video of what they discovered in the deep parts of the Indian Ocean.

More info: Youtube

ANIMALS

These Pics Are Art and the Artists Are Insects

Flying insects move so quickly that they are hard to follow, but new technology and some smart ideas have helped Spanish photographer Xavi Bou do just that. After spending 10 years focusing on birds in flight for his Ornithographies project, he turned his attention to insects.

For Entomographies, he uses high-speed video footage taken by Adrian Smith, an insect expert at North Carolina State University, to study and record how insects move. Bou then picks multiple frames and combines them into single images that show the fast movements of one or more insects through space and time.

With Smith’s help, Bou has captured the aerial tricks of wasps, the jumps of leafhoppers, and the fluttering of butterflies in amazing detail. He hopes that by doing this, he can make people more aware of the decline in important insect populations around the world.

1. Zebra longwing

This butterfly, which is common in many areas of the Americas, really fits its name. It can fly very high with just a few flaps of its large wings.