1 . Like many families, we had a dog — Little Joe. We all loved him dearly. He always trotted (小跑) around the streets. We tried to teach him about the ________ of the road, and finally locked him in the yard. However, one day, Little Joe dug a hole under the fence and ________.

Sometime later, the ________ news came that a truck had seriously injured Little Joe. We children ran to the ________ of the accident. Apparently unable to move, he lay with his eyes open, awaiting death by a policeman’s bullet, the ________ method in those days of dispatching (处决) injured animals. Tears filling our eyes, we ________around him, frustrated by our inability to respond to the ________ for help in his eyes. The policeman ________ us away from the dog and drew his gun. Wide-eyed, we began to back away with feet that seemed to be made of ________.

Suddenly the crowd began to ________ . My father elbowed (用肘推) his way through and spoke with ________ to the young policeman. “Put that thing away!” Then, ________, he removed his worn jacket and carefully ________ it around Little Joe. Little Joe’s broken body could not have been moved with more ________.

I’ll never forget that homeward journey. My father led a group of admiring children. We held our heads high with pride as we ________ behind the man who had saved our dog.

After struggling for several days, Little Joe finally survived. He went on to live a long life.

2 . In November 2020, a polar bear named Suka gave birth to several little ones, including Laerke. Laerke and her brothers and sisters were the first polar bears successfully born and _______ in the Detroit Zoo since 2004.

Days after her _______ , Laerke became significantly inactive and appeared increasingly _______. She was sent off to the zoo’s health complex for _______ , but by the time she returned home, her mom no longer _______ Laerke as her cub (小熊).

Without having any other polar bear who would _______ her, she would have to go without a _______, or so they thought. _______, that’s right when Jebbie needed a new home! Jebbie, the baby grizzly bear was _______ all by himself helplessly in Tok, Alaska, when he was ________ and taken to the Detroit Zoo, where he and Laerke had been gradually getting to know each other.

After some time, Jebbie and Laerke became best ________! The zookeepers have since posted pictures and videos of them playing, showing just how ________ they are. Together, they’re able to wrestle in the grassy tundra (苔原), splash around in the freshwater or saltwater pools, and play with toys ________.

“We’re excited that we are able to give Jebbie a home and ________ a much-needed friend for Laerke,” said Scott, chief life sciences officer of the Detroit Zoo. “This social development is critically ________ for both Laerke and Jebbie.”

3 . Bella, a 14-year-old cat from Huntingdon, UK, has claimed the Guinness Record for the world’s loudest purr (猫叫声) by a domestic cat, with a noisy purr______at 54.59 decibels (分贝).

The Spink family has had Bella for almost 15 years, and they’ve always______that she might have the world’s loudest purr. Friends and family would always ______her loud purring, and Nicole Spink’s late husband would ______that she was louder than the TV.

One day, they decided to put Bella’s purring to the test―they ______a smartphone app to measure the cat’s purr and were blown away by the______. She was louder than the Guinness World record for the loudest purr by a domestic cat, so they applied for an official record______.

Measuring sound with a smartphone app and having it measured by a sound engineer can bring about totally______ results, but in this case, the Spinks were lucky to have their measurements______. After feasting on a bowl of her favorite food, Bella got to enjoy some much-needed petting by her owner and she produced some ______loud purring.

The standardized class-1 sound meter recorded Bella’s ______pur at 54.59 decibels. That was more than enough to beat the 50-decibel requirement to______the Guinness Record.

It’s important to note that while Bella has ______the record for the loudest purr by a living domestic cat, she doesn’t have the loudest purr in history. That ______belongs to the late Smokey and Merlin, two cats who purred at the ______noise level of 67.8 dB, a full 13.21 louder than Bella.

4 . Simply finishing a marathon is a big achievement, but one woman in Thailand didn’t just run all 26.2 miles — she also _________ a little dog, Chombueng!

Runner Klongsanun was _________ a local marathon on Jan. 20th, 2023 when around mile seven, she noticed a seemingly _________ young dog along the roadside.

While other runners reportedly passed by the dog, Klongsanun, a dog lover, decided to pick it up and finish the _________. However, she still had 19 more miles to go. For anyone running a marathon, carrying any kind of _________ for 19 miles can make a marathon even more _________ and tiring. But instead of putting the dog down or _________ it to a looker-on to hold, the _________ Klongsanun crossed the finish line with the tiny dog in her arms.

After the race, Klongsanun _________ to take the dog home. Klongsanun even went back to the area where she first __________ Chombueng to make sure there weren’t any other dogs in need of __________, but she didn’t find any other animals.

“It was __________ a challenge to run almost 20 miles carrying a dog. __________, I did it because he is pitiful,” said Klongsanun. It looks like Chombueng has found a(n) __________ family while Klongsanun has a marathon __________ she’ll never forget.

5 . Many years ago, we came across a dog at an animal shelter ( 收 容 所) while looking for a companion (同伴) for our dog, Bear. This dog seemed to be meant for us and we _______ him, so we took him home. We thought the _______ name for the new dog was Bear Junior, and so it was.

Bear Junior would wake me up every morning at 4: 30 a.m. to go for a _______. He’d touch my face with his nose and I would soon _______. I once had to _______ for two days after an illness. My wife got up to _______ him for his morning walk. He held a sit-down strike (罢工) next to me and _______ to move. It worked.

Bear Junior felt it was his _______ to help all who needed it, no matter where he went.

One day, I took Bear Junior to the dog park. We had just started our walk when a small dog was barking (吠叫) for _______. We could see a big dog cornering him. Bear Junior went into ________, placing himself between the two, facing the big dog. I shouted, “Bear Junior! This is not your ________!” But he refused to let anything ________ until the owners were able to take control.

One winter, I was playing with Bear Junior in the snow. Across the street, an elderly lady ________ on a block of ice. Bear Junior ________ me, ran across the street, and sat right against her side. She used his collar (项圈) to pull herself up. Two days later, she came to our door with dog goodies to ________ Bear Junior.

7 . Ashley Liberto asked her students to use the school’s 3D imaging equipment to make a prosthetic limb (假肢) for her dog Bentley.

Bentley developed cancer after one leg became swollen, which was later ______ to save his life. Ashley described this experience as “______” and “emotional”.

Bentley is now healthy and still ______ all of his usual activities, but he gets ______ easily with only three legs. So Ashley brought him in to meet the school’s 3D printing students, and they were excited to get to ______.

Senior Brandon led some students in designing a prosthetic limb for Bentley. Brandon said it was nice to have a(n) ______ that would improve someone’s life. Bentley ______ to his new limb with ease. And the students were ______ to see their work put to such practical, real-life ______.

“Just seeing Bentley walk with four legs and seeing the ______ this project was going to have was really something special,” Brandon said.

Bentley is ______ using a temporary limb, but the final one will be ready in a few weeks. Ashley was happy that her students stepped up in such a ______ to improve her dog’s quality of life.

“______ are amazing.” she said. “They have such an imagination. They want to ______ big things in life.” These students really got a taste of what it’s like to be true ______. Well done!

8 . I adopted (收养) Didga as a twelve-week-old kitten, and now she’s nearly 11. In 2017, Didga _________ twenty-four different tricks in less than a minute while skateboarding, which got her into the Guinness Word Records.

I’ve been in the animal-training _________ for 40 years. Eleven years ago, I thought about getting a cat—everyone said cats couldn’t be _________, but I wanted to prove them wrong.

I started searching for _________ kittens to adopt. I went to a shelter, and, _________ I was walking through, a kitten caused a ruckus (喧闹) behind me. I stopped and looked _________. She was really trying to get my attention. So I _________ the kitten.

Didga knows a handful of tricks that took over a year to _________. Skateboarding is one of her most impressive skills. She rides along with the motion (移动) of the _________, jumping on and over objects. It’s an unbelievable __________ when a cat does a trick I’ve been trying to __________ for so long.

The psychology of training a cat is fascinating. Because I understand how animals think and learn, I can adjust (调节) to the cat’s abilities. If Didga doesn’t like it, I stop or go in a __________ direction.

I started some social accounts to teach people to have a better relationship with their __________. The attention we get is surprisingly impressive.

Didga has __________ my life and taken me to __________ I would never have dreamed of. I won the lotto (乐彩), finding a cat like Didga.

10 . Almost all animals sleep, but do they dream? We certainly can't ask animals if they dream, but we can at least ________ the evidence that they might. There are two ways in which scientists have gone about this seemingly ________ task. One is to look at their physical behaviour during the various stages of the sleep cycle. The second is to see whether their sleeping brains work similarly to our own sleeping brains.

The story of how we ________ how to look into the minds of sleeping animals begins in the 1960s. Back then, reports began to appear in medical journals describing people acting out ________ in their dreams. This was curious, because during so-called REM sleep(rapid eye movement), our muscles are usually paralysed.

Researchers realised that causing a similar state in ________ could allow them to explore how they dream. In 1965, French scientists Michel Jouvet and J F Delorme found that removing a part of the brainstem, called the pons, from a cat's brain ________ it becoming paralysed when in REM. The researchers called the condition "REM without atonia" or REM-A. Instead of lying still, the cats walked around and behaved aggressively. This hinted they were dreaming of ________ from their waking hours.

________ movement is not the only way of looking into dreams, though. Researchers can now ________ look into the electrical and chemical activities of brain cells in animals while they sleep. In 2007, MIT scientists Kenway Louise and Matthew Wilson recorded the activity of neurons in a part of the rat brain called the hippocampus, a structure known to be involved in the formation and encoding of memories. They first recorded the activity of those brain cells while the rats ran in their mazes. Then they looked at the activity of the very same neurons while they slept. Louise and Wilson discovered similar patterns of firing during ________ and during REM. ________ , it was as if the rats were running the maze in their minds while they were sleeping. The results were so clear that the researchers could infer the rats' precise ________ within their mental dream mazes and map them to actual spots within the actual maze.

Does the behaviour of cats in science experiments actually ________ dreaming? Do rats have any subjective awareness that they' re running their mazes in their minds while they nap? We can say with a reasonable amount of ________ that the physiological and behavioural features of dreaming in humans have now been seen in cats, rats, and other animals. Yet what it's actually like to ________ a dream if you' re not human remains a mystery.