Just as many of us, this family from Santa Clarita, California had to face some tough challenges once the pandemic started. However, Ellie Laks and Jay Weiner thought that bringing something spicy to their stay-at-home lifestyle will help them to better get through it.
It is when their family just got bigger as Ellie and Jay adopted a-week-old calf. The tiny calf’s mom was sold to a slaughterhouse, but these kindhearted people didn’t wanted the helpless creature to share his mom’s fate, so they saved the 50-pound creature to raise him inside their house.
“He had severe pneumonia,” the parents, who run the rescue non-profit Gentle Barns, explained. “He had loud, raspy breathing. He had a deep cough. He had an extremely high temperature.”
Due to his very precarious condition, John Lewis Thunderheart, how the lovely calf is named, required medical care. But even so, his rescuer wasn’t sure he would make it! Thankfully they were wrong as the hopeless calf found the perfect buddy in Sky – a very friendly Australian Shepherd. The gentle dog not only comfort the orphan calf and also protected him and helped him along the way.
“Lewis was so sick, but having Sky’s help — cuddling with him while he slept, cleaning his mouth, just nurturing him I think it’s one of the main factors that saved Lewis’s life,” the woman said.
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Now, the calf and his best friend are inseparable and they won’s stop playing all day long. Adopting and raising Lewis had definitely made the things easier for Ellie and Jay during the pandemic.
“They run all over the yard and tussle,” Ellie added. “Sky is very mouthy like a puppy and Lewis wonky like a cow, but somehow they make it work and understand each other.”
