Dog Finds Baby Deer, Immediately Treats It Like Her Own Puppy: ‘Magical’

Internet users have been left in awe of a moment between a golden retriever and baby deer captured on camera, which commenters have called “magical.”

Kayla Pumpelly lives and works on her Kentucky family farm, Pumpelly Farms Highlands and Mini Moos. She was taking her dog Sadie for a walk when the golden retriever made an incredible discovery; there was a fawn, hiding in the grass. And 5-year-old Sadie, who had recently had pups of her own, gave in to her maternal instincts and treated the fawn like her own.

“She still had the motherly instincts, and she was still in milk. So the fawn was getting milk from her,” Pumpelly told Newsweek.

In a video shared to Pumpelly’s TikTok account @pumpellyhighlandcows on June 9, which has been viewed over 1.2 million times, Sadie the golden retriever excitedly walks toward her owner, followed by the tiny deer.

Pumpelly says, “Sadie, you can’t keep that,” and, as she approaches, she realizes the fawn completely trusts the dog—enough that it is even nursing from her.

“I didn’t know what it was at first, and then we saw it was a baby deer, and we kind of freaked out because we were worried at first. It was exciting because it was cute, but we just didn’t know what to do. So we sat there and started videoing and taking pictures,” Pumpelly said.

The clip moves on to show a montage of photos of Sadie and the fawn, the mother dog protecting the deer, licking her, and allowing her to nurse. “It was just following her everywhere, and it actually tried to come up to us a couple of times,” Pumpelly added.

She wrote in a caption: “Sadie is the best girl and this entire ordeal was so special.”

TikTok users couldn’t believe what they were seeing in the sweet video, with one asking if Sadie really had milk; Pumpelly confirmed that the golden retriever did.

“That is so incredible,” one user posted, with another writing: “Wow I was not expecting that.”

“This is so magical,” a third commented.

Another user shared their own incredible story, writing: “I had a golden develop milk for kittens one. That mothering instinct is strong.”

Dogs have strong maternal instincts, and as puppies are born unable to see, hear or walk, they are completely dependent on their mother. For the first 10 days, the mom gives the pups undivided attention, the American Kennel Club writes. As the pups get more independence after around three weeks, the mother leaves them for longer periods of time.

Weaning puppies off their mother’s milk is a gradual process. It must be done naturally to prevent health problems for the mother or problems with the pups into adulthood, the AKC report adds.

While Sadie was clearly ready to adopt the fawn as her own, Pumpelly, 30, said that she and her husband called experts to ask what they should do. They were advised to take Sadie away and allow the fawn to return to hiding to see if its mother would come back.

And, after first showing the baby deer to their two young children, Pumpelly and her husband did just that: “And we watched and waited, and the mom ended up coming back for it,” she said.

Pumpelly added that she had suspected the video would go viral because it was “such a crazy ordeal, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.” She said it was nice to be able to put smiles on people’s faces.

And while the mother and baby were reunited in the wild, she has seen a deer at the end of their rural driveway every night since, and recently saw a baby with her.

While there’s no way of being sure that it is the same deer, Pumpelly said, “it makes me wonder, you know?”

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