1 . As an only child, Renae often felt _________. But that all changed when she turned ten. For her birthday, Renae’s grandmother _________ her with a lovely puppy named Chloe. From then on, the two were _________. Every bit of love Renae gave, the little dog returned more. “She was such a sweet dog,” Renae says. “She’d lick your face forever if you didn’t stop her.”

When Renae was 14, her father got a new job and the house needed to be free of noise. “Chloe liked barking,” Renae says. “I didn’t want to lose my dog but I didn’t have any _________ as a kid.” With no easier _________, the family sent Chloe to a humane society(动物保护协会). Though they were _________ that the dog would find a new home with people who loved her, they couldn’t know for sure. “I called the humane society to try to _________ what happened to her, but they couldn’t tell me anything. So, I never knew,” Renae says _________.

Later, Renae grew up, got married, and had a child. But her family didn’t feel quite _________. Remembering the joy that having a dog had brought her as a kid, Renae wanted her daughter to __________ the same. She had it in her mind that she would __________ a puppy. One day she saw a post on Facebook about a senior dog that needed a new home. The dog in the photograph looked like Chloe-she was even named Chloe. In an __________ it was decided: she would adopt it. “When we met, she ran up to me and started __________ my face. I was crying,” Renae says. “I just knew in my heart that it was her.” After years of thinking she’d never see her dog again, Renae is __________ to have her back. “I get so excited to come home and see her,” she says. “__________ Chloe, she’s made herself right at home,” Renae says. “And why shouldn’t she? She knows that she’ll be with me forever.”

2 . It was snowing hard. Gus Kiebel, a county wildlife officer, was driving home from work when he ________ the pair in the flash of his headlights. The father-to-be scanned the roadside so that his struggling ________ might rest safely for the night. He looked over at her ________. They needed a warm ________ from the bitter wind.

Gus parked his truck and ________ the animals. He stretched out his hands to the beagles (比格犬), which made no effort to ________. Then he dialed the number from the dogs’ tags (标牌). A man answered and immediately grew ________ when Gus told him why he was calling. “I gave those dogs away,” the man said. “They’re not mine anymore.” Then he hung up.

Obviously, these beagles were ________. Then he brought the tired beagles home. As a boy, owning beagles had been his ________, but keeping this pair was out of the question now—the Kiebels already had a family dog. So he ________ the League for Animal Welfare to drop them off—on one ________. “I’m not signing the dogs over to you if you’re going to ________ them,” he said. The shelter workers promised him they’d keep the couple together.

In the following days, Gus phoned the shelter ________ to check up on them. Soon, the beagles were adopted as a pair, to a loving family. It’s a simple story, but it ________ the best of our nature. And when kindness weighs more than ________, it becomes the greatest miracle of all.

3 . At the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, a handful of female wildlife rangers (护林员) traveled through snowbanks. _______ the strong mountain winds, they moved slowly. Sweat ran down, although the temperature was _______, at around -20°C. “We can’t take a long rest, because we need to _______ a drop in our body temperature,” said Xu Chunmei, a member of the ranger team. After a short _______ they struggled back into the forest to carry out their mission of protecting the forest and _______ wildlife.

The team of female rangers is _______ for patrolling (巡逻) more than 23,000 hectares home to some 50 Amur tigers, one of the world’s most endangered species. Along their path through the forest, the team will search for, and _______ illegal animal traps, and rescue wildlife they come across that may be in _______. During this process, the team not only faces threats from bad weather, but also from the local _______. “On a very hot summer day, ________ a hornet’s (蜂的) nest by accident. All of a sudden, countless hornets rushed at me. And I was badly hurt,” recalled ________ from a team member Zhang Xin.

Despite these difficulties, they tried many ways and ________ to solve them one by one. “Besides that, they are the best data collectors,” said Li Gang, head of the local forestry station. “Their work is really ________.” All of the team members feel proud, and the ________ of wildlife protection has taken root in them. They say they will ________ the concern for wildlife protection to future generations.

4 . Photographer Joe Sartore began making studio portraits (肖像) of________in 2006. The purpose is to________for future generations species that someday might be extinct. Sartore expects to have portraits of nearly 1,000 animals. Here are some________of his project, which is featured in this special issue on________wildlife.

In Sartore’s opinion, the Rabbs’ fringe-limbed tree frog (巴拿马树蛙) is one of the most________species he has photographed that have since gone________. A few years ago there was one left________, a male, at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. He had________it there times before it passed away. At those moments he thought to himself________, “Don’t mess this up.” It might be this animal’s only________to have its story told well.

Another memorable species Sartore photographed is the Florida grasshopper sparrow (草蜢沙鹀). It is endangered, but seems to be________back. It’s a small brown bird, and some people________it enough to try to save it. There are many________stories, such as the California condor, the Mexican gray wolf, sand so on. They all got down to perhaps two dozen or fewer individuals, but they’re all________now due to human efforts.

The situation is still________as a recent report says that as many as one million species are already on their ________to extinction. It’s foolish to think that we can throw away so much________and not have it affect humanity in a(n)________way. Sartore’s goal is to get the________to care about the extinction crisis while there’s still________to save the planet.

5 . This is a story about a heart-warming rescue. A lucky cat was ______ by a team of brave firefighters in Cornwall, thanks to a clever and friendly dog.

Mowgli, a lovely cat, had been ______ for six long days, leaving his owner, Michele Rose, filled with ______ and nearly admitting the fact that she would never see her pet again. However, ______ appeared again when she noticed her dog, Daisy, “going ______ ” , running crazily in and out of the nearby woods around her home in Harrow.

Daisy guided her master along a footpath ______ the old mine. She came to a sudden stop next to a ______ well at a depth of 100 feet.

“Daisy is a hero; she’s an amazing dog,” Rose said. “Without Daisy’s behaviors, Mowgli might still be ______ down there. She was exactly leading me to that ______ ; it was truly amazing.”

Following the exciting ______ , the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals(RSPCA)and Cornwall Fire and Rescue ______ a call for help. The team found Mowgli about 100 feet down and he was pulled to safety. The cat was ______ not injured.

Rose said Daisy shares a ______ tie with both of her cats, Mowgli and Baloo. “Daisy was already a year old when the little cats ______ , and they have been together ever since,” she said. “She is like their ______ , looking out for them, and they also love her.”

6 . In 2014, a second year student at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts went to Beijing Zoo with friends. Little did he know that an encounter at the aquarium there would ________ a lifelong passion. As Xu Yitang ________ corals of complex shapes in the glow of the tank’s light, a sense of wonder washed over him. Lost in the beauty and ________ of the creatures, he spent the entire afternoon in front of the tank.

Today, Xu, a Beijing native, has ________ Hainan Province, where he serves as a coral ________ for a Sanya-based tropical biological laboratory.

Each day, he spends several hours diving deep under the waves to observe and ________ the growth of the creatures that ________ him all those years ago. In the laboratory, he would film ________ videos of the artificial coral breeding system to explain the relationship between corals and reefs. His goal was to raise ________ and knowledge about corals, so that people can learn how to protect them ________.

Xu is actively engaged on social media platforms like Sina Weibo, where he regularly shares ________ amazing photos and entertaining videos of corals. He aims to encourage individuals to ________ to protecting coral: reefs and the oceans as a whole from the ________ impact of climate change and human activities.

While pursuing his passion to protect corals, he met his life partner, Liu Xiwen, through their ________ hobby of diving in Hainan. The couple have been invited to share their stories in the recently released online program Burning Youth that aims to use documentary shorts and ________ studio interviews to present the inspiring stories of young Chinese people from various walks of life.

7 . The morning commute (通勤) is never fun. But if you pass through Stevenage on your way to work, your morning might be a little ________ thanks to the cat Nala.

Dragging yourself out of bed in the morning and off to work is hard, ________ on dark winter mornings. However, you might ________ to come out of the house with a spring in your step if your commute started at Stevenage station, where you’d be ________ by a cat called Nala.

Usually found sitting on a ticket gate, four-year-old Nala lives close to the station with her owner Natasha Ambler, and often ________ the station at rush hour to enjoy attention from commuters. Ambler ________ a Facebook page called The Adventures of Nala where hundreds of people have voluntarily ________ photos of the adventurous cat.

Recent photos posted by commuters include Nala ________ in line for her canned food at a supermarket, napping on newspaper stands and ________ with commuters at the station barriers to get their attention.

Nala wears a GPS tracking device so that her ________ can be kept track of, and is usually found at the railway station or the ________ leisure park. As well as the usual collar with her name and owners’________ information, Nala wears a tag to let people know that she’s not ________.

According to the BBC, Ambler reported that she’s not ________ about Nala in the slightest: “She’s obviously ________ and she’s very happy doing what she does — I just hope one day she doesn’t actually try to get on a train.”

8 . “When one door closes,” the saying goes, “another door opens.” For one _______ dog, it appears that saying is also suitable for doggy doors.

A dog named Sheldon took part in a program to _______ a service dog. Unluckily, he couldn’t quite make the _______. Whenever he would _______ something interesting, Sheldon’s concentration flew out of the window and all he wanted to do was _______ the source.

But the very thing that made him a failure as a service dog meant he was likely _______ for another dog job. Sheldon was sent to the State Farm Arson Dog Program, where his sensitive (灵敏的) nose soon put him _______ the class for detecting the accelerants (探测肋燃剂) used to light illegal fires.

_______ John Tadlock of the Saginaw fire department, after his _______ Sheldon went on to become the department’s best accelerant detection dog.

In his first ________, Sheldon and his partner Tadlock were called to a car shop to look into some cars that had been ________ under suspicious (可疑的) circumstances. After three days, no one had been able to figure out how the fire got started — but the cause wasn’t ________ to Sheldon. “I put him to ________. It took him about 30 seconds to give me an alert (警报),” Tadlock said. Sheldon found the evidence with no ________.

For a dog with a super sense of smell, we guess whether you’re tailing bad guys or hunting for a job, it’s always best to follow your ________.

9 . It was 1:20 a.m. I had just gone to bed, a bit _________ after celebrating my 31^st birthday. Before dinner, I’d placed _________ outside my garden door and prepared the cell phone just _________. After all, it had been _________ that week, resulting in flood warnings.

I was awakened by the _________ of rushing water. When I swung my legs off the bed, I was shocked to feel cold water already up to my knees and _________ fast.

Shaking in darkness, I _________ my phone and turned on its flashlight. Then by the light I could _________ water was from the garden door. It must have breached (在……上打开缺口) the sandbags. The river, usually such a quiet, slow moving river in my region, had _________ burst its banks. And now I had to __________!

I took __________ action. Any effects of the alcohol before sleep were gone; __________ sobers (使清醒) me up. After I went outside, I learned the river had flooded the neighbourhood. Therefore, if I had woken up just a few minutes later, I would have drowned.

In the end, I think the experience made me __________ and determined to live each day to its fullest. I came very close to drowning that day. But rather than dwell on (沉湎于) what happened, I prefer to __________ what my mother told me afterwards, “Don’t remember the day when you lost everything. Remember the day you __________. That day marked the beginning of a new chapter in your life.”

10 . Adrienne Tully, an amateur photographer, went to the coast of a beach in Belmar, New Jersey. She planned to take photos of the ______ against the sea. Instead, she was able to ______ a frightening but happy journey. It all started last Sunday morning when she noticed a crowd ______ on the beach. Naturally, she joined them in the ______ of learning what was going on.

For a minute, Adrienne was ______ about what everyone was looking at. From how far away they were, it almost seemed like a bird. Looking closer, ______ , it was clearly a deer who was ______ on a raised rock in the middle of the ocean. The deer made a couple of ______ to swim back to the shore but the turbulent (汹涌的) water ______ all its efforts. Then someone who came out of nowhere ______ rode his surfboard to the deer. After a short magic while, the ______ managed to guide the deer out. Upon ______ ashore, the deer just ran north on the beach. Those watching nearby were no doubt ______ at the way this nameless young man ______ to help. But he somehow disappeared too, leaving people to hope he knows that he is greatly ______ for what he did.