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Life

11th May 2016

The dog and hummingbird friendship is straight out of Disney

Ellen Tannam

We’ve seen some unusual animal friendships in our time, and they always warm our shrivelled hearts.

This one is by far one of the more bizarre, and consequently more adorable versions of animal pals we have ever seen.

A man in California named Ed Gernon adopted a German Shepherd mix last year named Rex, and he was a troublesome dog in the beginning.

At the time, he tells CBSLA, Rex “fought other dogs and killed cats.”

“He was dangerous.He was an animal that had learned to live on the streets and to survive on his own hunting ability, I guess.”

You can imagine then how surprised Ed was when one day he was out walking Rex when the dog stopped at a tiny and sick hummingbird, and wouldn’t budge.

Fast forward to a year later, the hummingbird (they named it Hummer) has been nursed back to health and actually lives with Gernon and Rex.

Gernon fed her a special formula to help her regain her strength and taught her how to fly using a hairdryer.

“It was this little creature. This fragile creature that the whole world wanted to kill and he was trying to protect her so I thought I’d go the distance” Gernon said.

It is close to mating season now, and Hummer will soon leave, but Gernon is grateful for the things he has learned from the experience.

“I rescue this dog. He rescues the bird. The bird rescues all of us in a weird sense and it’s just a miracle”.

Watch the story here: