The Love of a Goose

Pet lovers adore their furry and feathered friends. We have bonds with them and sometimes a kind of weird relationship can develop inter-species. I wanted to share with you one such bond and weird relationship that is really cute to see.

This video is about a goose named Maria who resides near Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles. Maria has taken to a certain human and waits for him every day. They talk to one another and walk around the park together. You might say, "Love is blind" with this relationship. You can check out this short and cute video here and don't forget to view the second part of the video too.

For those of you who adopt your pets from local animal shelters, you've probably heard the saying that it's best to let the animal adopt you. Some people will visit with several shelter animals before they feel that one has adopted them. Although I don't totally agree with this saying, I will tell you that lots of times animals do seem to adopt a human before that human realizes what's going on. We'll never know why an animal will show "love at first sight" towards a particular human, but it happens.

My second adopted cat, Jesse is one such animal. I was volunteering in a local animal shelter when Jesse was put up for adoption. She was young, just a year old and young animals tend to be adopted sooner than the older animals. Not so for Jesse.

When Jesse came to the shelter, she was sick and looked it. While up for adoption, she was still sick and people just passed her by. She did, however, notice me. Jesse would not face the prospective pet owners as they walked by her kennel. Instead, she watched me on the inside and would reach out to grab me as I walked by. I already had one newly adopted cat at home and a husband who wanted a limit of just one cat. Well....Jesse wouldn't quit and no one wanted to adopt her. When her time ran out, I took her home.

Cats are not like birds, though as birds tend to partner for life and it looks like Maria the goose, has adopted a gentleman named Domenic. Birds can be just as terratorial as a pet dog when they're with their mate and some birds can live longer than humans.

You'll see in the video that Domenic and Maria ran into a problem. The city of Los Angeles was going to drain the lake that Maria and Domenic meet at daily to make some improvements and officials became concerned about what to do with Maria.

When wild animals become attached to a human as Maria has done, it can become a safety hazard for them. The City of Los Angeles recognized this and Maria was taken in by the local zoo as the lake was drained. Right now, no one knows what Maria's fate will be, but hopefully, she'll be able to return to the wild. Oh! And zoo officials found out that Maria is a Mario.

Whatever it was that fancied Maria or Mario to Domenic we'll probably never know; sometimes love happens when we least expect it.

Source: CBS News, March 28, 2011
You tube video; A Goose Named Maria