I couldn't even sort through the first box of our dog Bama's toys without bursting into tears. My husband, Alan, found me sitting on the floor, holding our dog's favorite toy. He gently pulled me to my feet. "It's okay, Lisa," he said. "I'll put these away. Why don't you go outside and get some air?"

I nodded.

It had been a few months since our beloved Bama had passed away. Alan and I didn't have children. Our boxer (拳师犬) was our baby. After Bama's death, we couldn't bring ourselves to go through his toys to decide what to keep. I told myself I'd do it when I was ready. Apparently, I still wasn't.

Now I sat on my front porch (门廊) and sobbed. Friends and family had suggested we get another dog, but Alan and I dismissed the idea. We couldn't go through that kind of heartbreak again.

I gazed out over the yard. Across the street was a dog. A boxer. Was he real or just my wishful imagination? I blinked. The boxer was still there. We locked eyes. He came across the street, straight toward me. Hesitantly, I offered my hand. He sniffed it eagerly then he licked (舔) me. I let out a surprised laugh. He pushed his head into my lap to be petted.

This dog was younger than Bama, smaller. He was well-fed and well-dressed. He wore a collar but had no ID. I knew he must belong to someone in the neighborhood, but I'd never seen another boxer around. I would have remembered if I had.

"Where did you come from?" I asked the dog, scratching him behind the ears.

He just sat there at ease. He didn't seem lost. Just as if he were dropping by for a visit.

"Alan!" I called. "You have to come to see this!"

Alan joined me, and we sat together in surprise for a moment. Then the boxer got up and slowly ran off.

The next day, there was a strange scratching at the door.

A week later, a young man I'd never seen before came in to visit.

When a tornado(龙卷风) touched down in a small town nearby,many families were left completed ruined. Afterward all the local newspapers carried many human-interest stories featuring some of the families who suffered the hardest.

One Sunday, a particular picture especially touched me. A young woman stood in front of an entirely shattered(破碎的) mobile home, a depressed expression on her face. A young boy, seven or eight years old, stood at her side, eyes downward. Clutching(紧握) at her skirt was a tiny girl who stared into the camera, eyes wide with confusion and fear.

The article that went with the picture gave the clothing sizes of each family member. With growing interest, I noticed that their sizes closely matched ours. This would be a good opportunity to teach my children to help those less fortunate than themselves. I stuck the picture of the young family on our refrigerator, explaining their difficulty to my seven-year-old twins, Brad and Brett, and to three-year-old Meghan.

“These poor people now have nothing,” I said. “We’ll share what we have with them. I brought three large boxes down from the room upstairs and placed them on the living room floor. Meghan watched seriously, as the boys and I filled one of the boxes with canned goods and foods.

While I sorted through our clothes, I encouraged the boys to go through their toys and donate some of their less favorite things. Meghan watched quietly as the boys piled up old toys and games.

Meghan walked up with Lucy, her worn, much-loved rag doll hugged tightly to her chest. She came to the box that held the toys, pressed her round little face into Lucy's flat, painted-on-face, gave her a final kiss, then laid her gently on top of the other toys.

“Oh, Honey,” I said.” You don’t have to give Lucy. You love her so much.”

Meghan nodded seriously, eyes filled with held-back tears. "Lucy makes me happy, Mommy. Maybe she’ll make that other little girl happy,too.”

The boys had watched,open-mouthed,as their baby sister placed her favorite doll in the box.

I looked my children for a long moment.

We first saw the lost dog on a beach on Mahé, an island in the Seychelles, Africa. My kids, then six and eight, were building sandcastles, when he got closed and watched them. The next day he appeared on the entrance of our holiday cottage.

My husband Farid and I thought he was looking for food, but soon realized he just wanted company. He was shy, about three years old, with orange, fox-like fur, big eyes and a longnose. We called him Chell and after five or six days of him hanging about nearby, we became friends.

We posted a message online: was there somewhere that could take him in? Finally, we met Olga, a 19-year-old local with five lost dogs and a heart of gold, who agreed to take him in. Chell had only been w thus a week, but when Olga arrived and tried to move him from our cottage to her car, he refused, making himself heavy. Eventually we managed it and watched sadly as they drove off.

“Will we ever see Chell again?” my elder daughter asked, crying. “I guess not,” I said, not wanting to sugarcoat it. But months later, Olga phoned us to says he was moving abroad to study and would we like to take in Chell ourselves?

Of course, we took Chell home. It was cod, unlike the hot Seychelles, and he was afraid of most things: climbing the sirs, our other dog Kerstin (an ill-tempered female border terrier)—he even seemed afraid of himself He’d start to play, then stop suddenly, the rush of happy emotions frightening him. This was perhaps the most heartbreaking of all: a dog who couldn’t play.

Months later, the weather turned cold and we let Chell into the yard to see his first snow.

At that moment I realized he was going to be OK.

I was still living in Peru when the earthquake happened. I had had a fight with my parents till midnight the day before because I thought they didn't understand me. Therefore, I was still sleeping in the afternoon. Suddenly. I was woken up by my dog barking at the shaking window next to me. Small quick earthquakes are very common. in Peru, especially in the coastal regions, so ignored it and tried to calm my dog so could fall asleep again. I had walked 4 steps from the sofa to get her when the whole wall-length window broke in front of me, huge sharp pieces falling right into the sofa I had been lying in just seconds before.

Fully woken up, I could hear what sounded like a million car alarms ringing from the ground. My parents were still at work, and I was alone in a 10-floor flat with a panicking dog running circles around me, so I forced myself to get it together. I lifted my giant dog in my and ran into the emergency stairs. just ran and ran until could see some street lights since the building had no emergency lights and everything was dark. When I finally rushed through the door of the hall, I could see the road below me breaking and trees shaking from their roots up.

I stayed in the streets for about an hour until my parents arrived.

After the earthquake, I had a heart-to-heart talk with my parents.

It was a Monday and Khan, a pet dog had joined the family the previous Friday. He had already decided that two-year-old Charlotte was-his No.1 girl. The dog had seldom left her side since arriving at his new home.

Khan was next to Charlotte when Catherine took her into the garden for some fresh air. “I was just in the house doing boring mother things and Charlotte wanted to go outside and run around,” she says. “We were just walking around the garden looking at flowers and all that good stuff. Khan was with her.”

Charlotte was soon tired of playing in the garden and then went to play the padlock on the gate. “She was beating the padlock and it was banging on the gate,” Catherine recalls. She thought Khan, who was naturally right next to Charlotte, might be disturbed by the loud noise, but he seemed undisturbed by it. That was until, entirely without warning, he became very upset indeed.

“Khan suddenly started making this noise from the depths of his chest, this growl,” she says. “His whole chest puffed up, his hair stood up, and he lowered his head. He continued to make this growl.”

As Catherine watched, Khan seemed to double in size. “He kept trying to push her. I was right next to Charlotte—no more than a metre away and I thought, ‘He’s going to hurt her’. His chest was bigger than he was long,” she says.

Time seemed to slow down as Catherine rushed desperately to save her daughter. But Khan got to Charlotte first. He grabbed her by the back of her clothes and threw her over his shoulder into the garden. “I turned and looked and she was just sitting there in a pile of grass.” Still not certain whether Khan’s strange behaviour was some sort of attack on her child, Catherine raced to pick up Charlotte, who was completely unharmed, and take her inside to safety. Just as she turned to run into the house, Catherine saw a big brown snake bite Khan right in the chest and slid away quickly.

Khan screamed in pain and at the same moment, Catherine understood all.

Khan needed immediate medical help, so Catherine called a vet (兽医) in no time.       

It's getting hot. It's time to put on lighter clothes and open up the windows. I can't wait to do so. Yesterday, an unforeseen visit to the kitchen happened during the brief time we were out. Two daring sparrows (麻雀) had risked landing on our territory to enjoy the freshness in our sink and some other breadcrumbs (面包屑) on our kitchen counter.

Actually, sparrows are everywhere. The tiny, gray -and brown birds are found on every continent except Antarctica, flying or jumping around cities, picking up leftover food on side-walks, and sometimes chasing with native bird species. These small creatures have adapted to living alongside humans- similar to pet dogs.

When you come across such sudden callers, you are likely to sense it as an unwanted visitor into your comfort zone, or you might receive it as a lovely angel of life. I chose the second option, with no hesitation while my husband preferred driving them away. After all, I've never come to stop to feel the relationship with sparrows.

I recalled when I was a little girl living in the city, I lived in an apartment with a flat roof viewed from our kitchen window. Every day my mom and I would go out to feed the sparrows. She taught me how to call them with a clicking sound she made with her tongue. I have loved sparrows ever since. So every day in my spare time, I can't stop observing and celebrating their dance from our window. I stuffed them with the leftovers on our tablecloth after every meal. And I have provided them with every kind of bases and stands of our house.

Undoubtedly, they feel at ease in our backyard. And that has led them to gather up courage and slide into our kitchen, bedroom or even reading room. Perhaps because they have the feeling that we don' t consider them trouble makers, but friendly neighbors. But I am slightly worried about their droppings (粪便).

One day, they left some droppings in my husband's reading room.

About two weeks later, I heard my husband calling “Oh, my God!”

Jack and his wife Tonya were sailing around Africa with their friends Max and Sasha. One day they saw a big fishing boat. It was moving fast. “Hello!” they shouted. The men on the boat looked at them angrily. Max looked carefully at the boat.

“Something’s wrong with their fishing net, “he said. They got nearer to the net. “What’s that?” said Tonya.   “There is something in the net. It’ alive.” Very slowly they moved nearer.

“I can see it now,” said Tonya. “It’s a killer whale- it’s hurt. There’s blood in the water. How can we help it? “I can see it too. It’s a baby but we must be careful,” said Max.

Jack jumped into the water.” “ I can get the net off its fin,” he said.

Jack got the net off the baby killer whale. There was a big cut on its fin. It swam away. Suddenly there were other killer whales near the boat.

“Jack! “ Tonya shouted.

“Get in quickly.” Jack swam to the boat as fast as a fish.

“I’m going to call that baby killer whale Lucky,” he said.

As they moved away, it began to rain harder and harder.

Jack said. “We must get away from the wind. I can see a town over there. Let’s go.”

The town got nearer but the waves got bigger. Suddenly a very big wave hit the boat.

“Is everyone OK?” shouted Jack. “Tonya?... She’s not in the boat,” said Sasha. “She’s in the water.”

They looked into the cold, dark water for hours. “Tonya! Say something, Tonya. Where are you?” shouted Max.

The wind got stronger and the boat was full of water. Another big wave hit the boat. “Jack, do you want us all to die?” said Max. “We can’t do any more. Tonya is wearing a lifejacket and she can swim very well. Let’s sail to the town.”

Moments later the boat hit a beach. They went out. Max and Sasha slept on the beach. Jack sat near the water, looking at the sea and thinking about Tonya.

At that time, Tonya was five hundred meters away out in the sea.

Jack was walking along the beach and suddenly he saw someone waving to him.

A. J. shut the door of the truck. “Ready,” he said. His dad started the truck. It was six o'clock and freezing, but the strong morning sun promised warmer temperatures. It had been colder than normal over the past week, and the ground and ponds were already frozen.

“After we check on the cows,” Dad said, “you should have some time to practice roping cattle.” A. J. wanted to enter the rodeos (牛仔竞技表演) in which cowboys rode wild horses, and caught cattle with ropes.

The best professionals could break from the gate on horseback, rope a calf (小牛), and hog-tie (捆绑) the calf (牛犊) in less than ten seconds. So far, A.J. needed nearly a minute and a half, but he’d only been at it for a few months.

The truck bounced down the dirt road. In a few minutes, they passed through the field gate.

A. J. pulled a pair of telescopes (望远镜). The black spots of cows on the far hill took shape. The cows gathered around the pond. A. J. guessed they wanted the water locked under the ice. Suddenly, they heard extremely frightened shouts from one cow. Dad stopped the truck, and he and A. J. stared at the frozen pond anxiously.

A calf lay on the ice in the middle of the pond. A cow, no doubt the calf’s mother, stood onshore, shouting desperately. The calf struggled to get up but slipped and fell each time.

The morning sun seemed warmer. Too warmer. A. J. knew that the situation was urgent. If the calf lay there too long, she could fall through the ice and drown. Dad eased the truck down the hill and stopped at the edge of the pond. “No telling how long she’s been there,” he said. “The ice could be about to melt. I don’t think we can risk it.” Dad shook his head, “It’s just not safe.”

A. J. watched the calf, whose eyes were wide with fear.

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It would be just like rodeo practice, A. J. thought, trying to stay calm.

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