| NAME: | Mkombozi |
| SPECIES: | Mixed-breed dog |
| DATE: | May 2005 |
| LOCATION: | Near Nairobi, Kenya |
| SITUATION: | Abandoned newborn |
| WHO WAS SAVED: | “Angel,” a two-week-old girl |
| LEGACY: | World-famous icon of motherly love, won 2005 North Shore Animal League America Award |
Abandoning an infant goes against every maternal instinct nature has devised. Yet it may be this same maternal instinct that inspires animals to occasionally rescue and protect abandoned human babies. This is one explanation given whenever animals are found caring for feral children (see page 200), and it almost certainly plays a role in the stories of dogs rescuing abandoned infants. Sadly, there is more than one such story.
FINDING AN ANGEL
The most famous incident occurred near the Ngong Forest outside Nairobi, Kenya, in May 2005. A stray female dog who had recently given birth to a litter of puppies was scavenging for food in a rubbish heap. There, she found a newborn baby wrapped in some tattered clothing.
The dog grabbed the rags in her mouth and carried the baby across a busy road and under a barbed-wire fence, eventually placing the infant with her own remaining puppy in a shed where she lived. The dog’s puppies had not been healthy, and all but one had already died. Witnesses said they saw the dog carrying the bundle but didn’t know what it contained. Not long after, two children from the family that owned the shed heard the baby crying. They went to investigate and immediately told their mother, Mary Adhiambo.
Mary said she found the dog “lying protectively with her puppy beside the soiled baby lying in a torn black cloth. I held the baby in my arms and carried it into the house.”
Mary took the seven-pound, four-ounce girl to the hospital. The baby had a badly infected umbilical cord and was suffering from exposure. Authorities estimated she was about two weeks old and must have been abandoned for two days.
Hospital staff named the child “Angel,” and the heart-warming rescue attracted international attention. Donations and offers of adoption poured in from around the world. When no one came to claim the baby, and her mother was never found, Angel was eventually placed with a new family.
ADOPTING A SAVIOR
Meanwhile, the dog was dubbed “Mkombozi,” which is Swahili for “savior.” Jean Gilchrist, executive director of the Kenya SPCA, speculated that Mkombozi was perhaps driven by the deaths of her own puppies to care for the human infant. “Other dogs might have just left [the baby] there to die,” Gilchrist said. “She’s obviously a very special dog.”
Mkombozi was also street-wise and wary of people, and she “wasn’t happy when we all poured into the compound,” Gilchrist said. At first, Mkombozi ran away, but neighborhood kids found her and brought her to the SPCA, which bathed, fed, and dewormed her. In the middle of these events, Mkombozi’s last puppy died, and the SPCA formally adopted Mkombozi, where she became, Gilchrist said, “a member of our office staff and an ambassador for the canine population.”
However, as events unfolded, some people voiced frustration and even skepticism about the story. First, some doctors at the hospital said Angel didn’t show the scratches they would expect if she had been dragged through a barbed-wire fence. Others complained about the unfairness of the sympathy being heaped on Angel, when hundreds of abandoned Kenyan babies languished, wanting for adoption.
Finally, others doubted that any dog would ever be motivated to rescue an abandoned child. While a variety of motivations are possible, it may also be that events ended exactly the way Mkombozi intended.
Mkombozi, Gilchrist said, “is a very intelligent dog. It’s very easy to put human emotions and thoughts to animals, but I don’t think we give them enough credit sometimes. I think she knew that this baby should go back to where the other children were, to be looked after.”
In other words, Mkombozi was just being who she was, a nursing mother caring for a helpless baby—any baby.
CANINE RESCUERS
If this were the only story of a dog rescuing an abandoned infant, we might be tempted to dismiss it as a fabrication or exaggeration. Yet here are four very similar stories that are even more recent.
Scientists have long puzzled what makes up our so-called “maternal instinct.” Caring for children is certainly critical. Fail in that, and no species will last long. But how does nature keep exhausted parents on task?
First, and perhaps most important, are hormones, and the main culprit is oxytocin. Meaning “quick birth” in Greek, oxytocin is produced in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates our organs and bodily functions, and it assists with a pregnant woman’s labor contractions, stimulates the release of breast milk, lowers blood pressure, slows the heart rate, and inhibits the production of stress hormones.
For a mother who has just given birth, this feel-good hormone floods her system at “the sight, sound, smell, and even thought of her baby,” writes Meg Daley Olmert in her book Made for Each Other.
Men experience this rush of oxytocin as well, and this hormone is considered essential for the parental bonding that takes place after birth.
Studies have also shown that infantile facial features can elicit paternal feelings in anyone, not just doting parents. This is why the big head, big eyes, tiny nose, and fat squishy cheeks of a baby are so irresistible. Further, this caring response kicks in when we encounter the juvenile members of any species. That’s why we go “aawwww!” at the sight of kittens, puppies, and wild animal babies, even those babies who will one day grow into ferocious, deadly predators.
Since oxytocin is also implicated in what creates the human-animal bond (see page 244), it would seem that all animals are programmed to care for babies, perhaps no matter what species.
In August 2008, in a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, a dog named La China found an abandoned newborn infant in a field. Without leaving any bite marks, La China carried the hours-old baby about 150 feet to her own litter of puppies, where the infant’s cries were heard by La China’s owners. The baby’s mother, a fourteen-year-old girl, was later found and admitted to abandoning her child.
In June 2012, in Winkongo, Ghana, the search for a lost farm dog led to an unexpected discovery: The dog had spent the night under a bridge nestled with an abandoned two-week-old baby girl. The baby was rescued, and the press dubbed the dog “Hairy Poppins.”
In June 2013, in Bangkok, Thailand, a dog named Pui found a premature baby infant in a plastic bag in a garbage dump. The dog carried the bag home and barked till his owners appeared, thus saving the child. Pui won an award from the local Red Cross, but his owner, Poomrat Thongmak, said, “It was a surprise to us, since Little Pui never brought anything home, only barking at strangers when he’s out and about.”
Finally, in December 2013, in Birmingham, England, a German shepherd named Jade noticed an abandoned baby hidden in a carrier bag while taking a walk in the park with his owner, Roger Wilday. The baby was less than twenty-four-hours old and had probably been in the park under an hour. Jade ran off, sat by the bag, and wouldn’t move until a confused Wilday came over. Wilday called the police, and the baby made a full recovery.