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Dillie the Deer: Love on Tiny Hooves
In summer 2004, veterinarian Melanie Butera received an unexpected patient: a blind, dying fawn named Dillie. Butera and her husband nursed Dillie to health.
Now, Dillie—who snacks on lollipops and has her own bedroom in their house in Canal Fulton, Ohio—is a daily source of comfort and love to her adoptive family.
Dillie the deer acts just like a house-trained dog as she walks up the stairs and lounges around on her owner's bed. Living with vet Melanie Butera, Dillie is so spoiled she is served linguine in bed. She has even managed to work out where a deer that lives in a house should go to do her business.
Taking full advantage of Melanie and her husband Steve's generous hospitality, Dillie even gets to enjoy their swimming pool and five acres of property on which to run around on.
Living with the Buteras since she was three days old, Dillie now knows how to turn lights on and off and how to take ice from the dispenser in the fridge.
'We took a call from a local farmer at 3am one wintry night,' said Melanie, 48. 'Dillie's mother was not taking to her and he asked if we wanted to try to nurse her back to health. We put her on an IV drip because she weighed four pounds and got her back up and running after around two weeks.
'We then realised that she couldn't go back to the farm and live with the other deer and she couldn't live with our horses because they scared her too much.'
Leaving her in the capable hands of her eight-year-old poodle Lady, Melanie decided that Dillie was going to become the Butera household's latest pet.
'She developed cataracts and this meant that she had to be cared for in a sensitive manner,' explained Melanie.
'She would hang around Lady and she very quickly learned to act like a dog. This became apparent to us when we came home one day and couldn't find her downstairs.
'We walked upstairs and found her standing on our bed with Lady. She had obviously learnt a few tricks from the old dog.'
Dillie even has her own website and live webcam!
http://www.dilliedeer.com/
Sources:
http://dailym.ai/1rAKivz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGeQE-BBDvI
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