It was a situation that is rarely experienced even in Australia, with all its unusual animal species: Around ten o’clock in the evening, Kirsten Muhle Lynch, who lives with her family in Hobart in the south-east of the country, heard her young dog barking. The four-month-old golden retriever pup made an unusual noise, Lynch told ABC, so she went into the living room to check on him.
She thought the pup wanted to play with his stuffed animal – which was modeled after a Tasmanian devil. The animals, also called Tasmanian devils, live exclusively in Australia. And even there they are almost exclusively found on the island of Tasmania. Since they are so rare, the cheeky-looking four-legged friends with the teddy ears are under strict protection. For many Tasmanians they are a symbol of their homeland. That’s why the Lynch family’s little Golden Retriever got such a toy.
Kirsten Muhle Lynch discovered the cuddly toy on the living room floor and wanted to bring it to the little dog – but suddenly the supposed toy began to wriggle wildly. It took the Aussie a second to grasp the situation, then screamed in horror (“I got the fright of my life, I woke the whole family up!”) and reflexively climbed onto the coffee table. The very lively Tasmanian devil, who had somehow got lost in the house, fled under the sofa in a similarly frightened manner.
“It was very cute, but the situation was just unusual,” the woman told ABC. The family home is near wild scrubland where the animal is believed to have originally lived. So the summoned family man decided to bring the cheeky intruder back there. To get him out from under the couch, however, he had to gently nudge him in the right direction with a broom – his wife and children watched him from a safe distance.
The unexpected visitor was a young animal – in winter they set out to look for their own territories. It can sometimes happen that they get a little too close to people. The little devil appeared unharmed and in good condition, which is why the lynch’s didn’t call animal rescue, but were actually able to just release him in the end.
Those: ABC
