After the mother opossum was murdered, a dog in Brazil took in the young and raised them as its own. Fortunately, Stephanie Maldonado was the one to find the cubs in time, and she and her other dog, Petrinha, raised them as their own.
Stephanie made an initial inquiry with a wildlife rescue organization in the hopes that they would be able to take in the newborns who had not yet opened their eyes. However, the rescue center was unable to accommodate them, so the woman took care of them herself.
Due to the fact that the infants were still quite young and hadn’t opened their eyes just yet, they needed to be fed every two hours. Stephanie had some reservations about their potential for development in the absence of a mother who could look after them around the clock. Petrinha came to the rescue just at the right time to offer assistance.
From that moment forward, the dog raised the young opossums as if they were her own, taking full responsibility for their care. The following was a post that Stephanie made on her Facebook page:
“Pretinha, my daughter who has four legs, is currently nursing the possum babies and keeping them warm. It’s very heartwarming to see how kind and affectionate she is with them, always licking and cuddling them.
Petrinha did everything in her power to save the lives of the puppies even though she had been spayed and could no longer produce milk for them to drink. Young possums looked up to her as their mother and pursued her at all times of the day to interact with her.
The little dog was so tolerant of them that she allowed them to ride on her back when they went for walks, just like a mother possum would do in the wild. Since Petrinha took over the care of the young Opossums, they have been steadily growing older and gaining weight. The surrogate mother is very proud of her offspring at this point.