Lost Baby Koala Found Clinging to Golden Retriever’s Back for Protection During Cold Night

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Recent stories of wildlife destruction coming out of Australia are pretty grim, as literally millions of indigenous animals, especially koalas and kangaroos, have been killed or affected by fires. However, it’s good to take a moment to appreciate the touching stories that play out, as man or even man’s best friend lend a hand, or paw, to their wild, furry friends.

Such was the story of a baby koala (called a joey) that somehow ended up clinging to the back of a golden retriever named Asha in Strathdownie in western Victoria state. When the dog’s owner, Kerry McKinnon, came downstairs after a particularly cold night, she was stunned to see the joey attached to Asha’s thick, warm coat.

“I just burst out laughing,” McKinnon told News Australia. “Poor Asha didn’t know what to think, she just kept looking at me with such a confused look.” Realizing that the tiny koala had come in to stay warm, McKinnon says the joey “never would have made it through the night” if it weren’t for the warmth provided by the dog.

It was especially cold that night where McKinnon lives, with temperatures dropping to 5 degrees C (41 degrees F). McKinnon wasn’t sure how the koala had lost its mother. “I think the baby koala fell out of his mom’s pouch and didn’t know what to do,” she said.

“He would have just wandered over to our back porch and seen the dogs in their beds, then decided to snuggle in Asha’s fur because it’s nice and warm [...] The poor thing could have been taken by a fox or something too.”

Koalas live almost their entire lives in the tree canopy, so if the joey found itself on the ground, it would probably have been quite disoriented and feeling the cold. When the morning came around, it was actually McKinnon’s husband who was the first to spot the strange sight. “I didn’t know what he was talking about at first but then I saw this tiny koala snuggled on top of Asha,” said McKinnon.

“She looked a bit guilty when I came out to see what was going on. Her expression was hilarious,” she added. “She kept looking back at the koala but she wasn’t trying to get him off her or anything. She was happy to let him snuggle into her [...]

“I think it would have been happy to have just slept there all day. It was really an amazing thing to see and so uniquely Australian.”

Kerry McKinnon knew that the koala joey needed to be seen by a vet and then released back into the wild, but when she tried to remove the baby koala from Asha’s back, there was some mild resistance. “When we took the koala off to wrap it in a blanket, it hissed at me and carried on,” she said.

They eventually got the joey to the vet, where they were able to confirm it wasn’t sick or injured in any way. It was transferred to a koala rescuer who would hopefully be able to release it into the wild.

Unfortunately, massive numbers of Australia’s koalas haven’t been so lucky. Many have been killed or seriously wounded in the blazes. Even for the animals that have managed to survive, the problems of finding food and the destruction of their habitat are potentially catastrophic.

Australia’s Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley told ABC radio program AM that more than a third of the koalas in the state of New South Wales have been killed by the fire. The government has devoted $6 million to creating “corridors” through which koalas can traverse populated areas in order to get to protected habitat. However, with so much of the native forest devastated by the fires, it’s unclear where all the remaining animals will go.