11 Heartwarming American Family Moments That Remind Us Animals Bring Joy Into Our Lives

“Our golden retriever had a seizure 2 years ago & was never the same. Head low. Eyes sad.

A Long Island, NY school hatched a duckling & needed help. I rescued him, terrified of putting them together. One day we heard quacking & barking. We rushed out to find that the two were starting to bond.”

Soon, the two became great friends. The compassionate duckling also proved to be a good influence on her canine buddy. Their owner shared, “She started smiling again. She started wagging her tail. She started having personality again.”

“My last breakup was really rough and I wasn’t eating well. My dog would make me follow him to his food bowl where he would get a bite in his mouth, spit it out in front of me, then eat 1 piece at a time, looking at me between each piece like, ’Look, see? This is what you do! It’s good. Try it!’

He is my best guy and I love him to the ends of the earth.”

“I was having low blood sugar and my cat meowed until I checked and drank some juice.

I love her and she’s been such a comfort to me when I’m down.”

“I was pregnant and my dr told me I needed to go to the hospital to be induced almost 3 weeks early. I came home to pack a bag, terrified I sat on the floor and cried. My 15-year-old dog who can barely walk anymore, got up and waddled over to me and leaned against me while I cried.”

“I wrecked my arm a few years ago and needed a substantial amount of orthopedic hardware installed. My cats took turns sitting on my arm and purring during my recovery. Any time I was sitting, one of them was on it and purring away. It was very sweet of them.”

“I’ve had kitties lay on me when I was sad, but the sweetest one was my ex bf’s parents’ dog. We stopped over there after work and sat for a few minutes. I mentioned to the bf I was getting hungry. Their golden heard me, went straight to his bowl, and got a mouthful of his kibble — came and deposited it next to me on the couch.”

“Our dog used to jump up on the bed when my husband’s blood sugar got low while he was sleeping. She’d get in his face and wake him up. She was not a service dog or trained in any way.”

“Was on the subway heading home after an especially hard day at work. Note that on the subway here all dogs must be muzzled. However, this one dog must have realized I’d needed some loving. She forced her muzzle off and came over to give me a kiss.”

“When my son was three he had a bad bout of night terrors. Multiple ones a night so none of us were sleeping. One night at bedtime, my dog went in his room and didn’t follow me out like she usually did. I let her stay. My son didn’t have any night terrors that night.

The next morning, I went to get my son up and my dog had jumped up on his bed, and was sleeping next to him. She continued to sleep in his bed from then on and he never had anymore night terrors.”

“My grandparents owned a ranch in central Oregon. When I’d go visit, Maggie (the border collie) would never leave my side EVER. I’d go on adventures with her and we’d just roam the property.

I was walking from my aunt’s house back to my grandparents’ house, which was about a half mile away on the same chunk of property. Well there’s a cattle guard you have to cross that goes over a fairly large creek that was frozen over. The cattle guard was obviously slick and I slipped off the side and my hood caught one of the bars, so I was dangling from my hood and just my tip toes were touching the ice.

I was panicking and I couldn’t pull myself up and Maggie started to freak out, barking at me and luckily my grandparents’ house was only about 50 yards away from this cattle guard, just around this corner basically.

Well, Maggie took off sprinting to my grandparents’ house, barking like crazy, and my grandparents went out to check it out because that’s weird behavior from her and also thought, ’That’s weird, Maggie never leaves his side,’ so they knew something was up. And sure enough, Maggie led them right to me. Still dangling from my hood.

I know it sounds like something from a movie but it’s true!”

“I grew up in the forest, turns out my neighbor had two golden labs for search and rescue. He would have me hike for hours into the forest alone and have his dogs sniff me out. This was on some reservation in Colorado, so I didn’t have to worry about bears and stuff. Dogs are truly amazing creatures for rescue.”