Question

Your class recently visited an animal petting zoo. At one special exhibit, two animals had become good friends even though they were two different types of animals. Your class begins to wonder if this happens with other animals. You decide to do some more research. You have found three sources. Your class decides to make a storybook to share with the animal petting zoo and the people who visit the zoo. You will write a story to add to the storybook.

You have decided to write a story about a boy or girl who already has a pet and is now getting a different type of pet. Write about what happens when the two pets come together for the first time. When writing your story, find ways to use information and details from the sources to improve your story. Make sure you develop your character(s), the setting, and the plot, using details, dialogue, and description.

As you write, think about these questions:

Did you write a narrative about the assigned topic?
Did you use details to describe the characters, places, and events?
Did you organize your narrative clearly with a beginning, middle, and end?
Did you use a variety of words and well-written sentences?
Did you use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation?


Source One
Can We Be Friends?
By Ellen R. Braaf
What Is a Friend?

Biologist Dr. Marc Bekoff at the University of Colorado studies dogs, wolves, and coyotes. Although human friendships differ from animal friendships, Bekoff believes that many animals do have friends. What are the signs of animal friendship? If they're in the same pack, animal friends may sleep close to one another. They greet one another, travel together, share food, and groom each other. Animal friends are nice to one another. They even play together. This friendly behavior can be important to an animal's survival.

Playing together, for instance, helps forge important social bonds* that keep an animal within the safety of the group. “Coyote pups who don’t play much are less tightly bonded to other members of their group and are more likely to strike out on their own,” says Bekoff. Leaving the protection of the group is dangerous. In his seven-year study of coyotes in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, Bekoff found that 60 percent of the youngsters who left the group failed to survive.

For more than 35 years, Dr. Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has studied primates—animals such as apes and monkeys. He, too, believes friendship plays a role in understanding how these animals interact.

How does de Waal define friendship? “Friendship involves liking, loyalty, and common purpose,” he says. “I know two female chimpanzees who 30 years ago were already close friends. They lived in a zoo group in the Netherlands with more than 25 chimpanzees. Last year I visited and noticed that they were still friends, still grooming each other, helping each other in fights, and so on. Loyalty!”

Why do animals have friends? “Mainly because in the long run they benefit from friendships,” de Waal says. “It is all give and take. Sometimes one gives more, the other takes more, but in the end both parties gain.”…

*social bonds: closeness

Answer 1

The day after the class trip to the petting zoo, Ava woke up with grass still on her shoes and a question buzzing in her head. At the zoo, the children had watched a goat and a pig curl up together in a straw-filled stall. The goat nuzzled the pig’s neck. The pig nudged the goat back. They even shared a bowl of apples. “Can different kinds of animals really be friends?” Ava had whispered to her neighbor on the bus.

That afternoon Ava sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor and told Sunny, her golden retriever, all about it. Sunny thumped his tail against the rug, ears flopping, and gave a soft doggy sigh. Sunny had been Ava’s friend since she was six. He loved frisbees, belly rubs, and sitting under the dining table while she did homework. Sunny had never had a real animal buddy at home.

“I think we should try it,” Ava said. She looked at the picture of the goat and pig in her notebook, and then at Sunny’s hopeful face. “We’ll bring home a different kind of pet. Someone Sunny can meet slowly.”

Ava’s parents said yes, with one rule: meet gently and patiently. At the rescue shelter the next day, Ava spotted a small, twitchy rabbit in a hutch. The rabbit’s fur was the color of toasted marshmallows and her eyes were bright as buttons. The shelter volunteer smiled when Ava asked if the rabbit liked dogs. “She’s curious,” the volunteer said. “She used to live near a family with a dog. Her name is Poppy.”

Ava cradled Poppy in a soft towel while Sunny sniffed the carrier from the car. Poppy’s nose wiggled; Sunny’s tail wagged so hard the car seat squeaked.

Ava remembered something from their petting-zoo debrief at school. Their teacher had read an article called “Can We Be Friends?” by Ellen Braaf. It talked about animal researchers—Dr. Marc Bekoff who studied dogs, wolves, and coyotes, and Dr. Frans de Waal who studied primates. “They said animals show they’re friends by greeting each other, grooming, playing together, sharing food, and sometimes even sleeping close,” Ava told her mom on the drive home. “They call it making social bonds.”

At home Ava set up a quiet place for Poppy in the living room and brought Sunny over on a leash. “We’ll let them say hello,” she told Sunny. “Remember to be gentle.”

Sunny sat on his haunches and tilted his head. Poppy hopped out slowly, ears forward, whiskers quivering. For a long, heart-stopping second they stared at each other. Sunny sniffed the air. Poppy took a tiny step forward and sniffed Sunny’s big wet nose. Ava felt like she might float away with how proud she was of both of them.

“Good job,” Ava whispered. She offered them both a small piece of carrot. Poppy took hers first, munching with delicate teeth. Sunny chewed his slower, careful not to scare the rabbit. When the carrot bowl was empty, instead of racing off, Sunny nudged what was left of a leaf toward Poppy with his nose — like sharing. Ava remembered the article again: share food. It made her chest feel warm.

The first week was slow and careful. Ava supervised every meeting. Sometimes Poppy thumped her hind leg when she felt nervous and hurried back to her bed of hay. Sunny learned to lie down and wait, his big head resting on his paws while Poppy explored. Other times they surprised Ava — they would chase the same stray leaf that blew across the rug, racing in opposite directions, then both stop and bark with happiness. They played together. Playing helped them learn how the other moved, and slowly they learned to trust one another.

One rainy afternoon, the sun was hiding and quiet filled the house. Ava sat at the kitchen table writing a short report for school about what she’d seen. She wrote the words Dr. Bekoff used: greeting, play, grooming. She remembered Dr. de Waal’s idea that friendship is about liking, loyalty, and working together. Lightning flashed outside and both pets, who normally slept in different rooms, came into the living room. Poppy hopped onto the rug and Sunny padded over and lay down beside her. Poppy hopped right up against Sunny’s warm side, tucked her head beneath his ear, and started grooming his fur in tiny, deliberate licks. Sunny sighed, closed his eyes, and rested his chin across Poppy’s back.

Ava smiled so big that her pencil left a smear on the paper. Sleeping close — that was one of the signs of animal friendship. She had watched it with her own eyes now.

Over the next months, the pair found their own ways to show care. Sunny would bring toys to Poppy when she was bored, nudging a soft ball to the rabbit’s feet. Sometimes Poppy would stand on a low coffee table and thump a warning when a strange dog passed the house — and Sunny would lift his head and bark once, as if saying, “Thanks, I heard you.” They helped each other in little ways: Sunny kept Poppy company on stormy nights, and Poppy’s quiet presence gave Sunny someone to look after when Ava was at school. It was give and take.

One evening, Ava’s teacher called to invite the class to the petting zoo again. “We’ll bring pictures of pets who are friends,” the teacher said. Ava thought of the goat and the pig in the stall, of Sunny and Poppy sharing carrots and grooming each other. She put a photo of her two pets on the classboard: Sunny with his head on his paws, Poppy asleep against his side.

When Ava told the class the story, she used the words she had learned: “Animals can be friends even when they’re different. They greet each other, they play, they share food, and sometimes they even sleep close together. I saw Sunny and Poppy do it.” Her classmates clapped, and a kid in the back raised his hand. “Will they always be friends?” he asked.

Ava looked down at the picture of Sunny and Poppy and remembered Dr. de Waal’s words about loyalty. “Friends sometimes give more or take more,” she said. “But in the end, both of them gain something important. They’re happier together.”

That night, before she turned out the lights, Ava knelt beside the sleeping pets. The room smelled like hay and dog hair and quiet. Sunny twitched an ear. Poppy wiggled her nose. Ava brushed her fingers over Sunny’s fur and felt the soft, even rise and fall of two hearts at rest. Outside, the world went on, busy with things that didn’t know how to be friends. Inside, on a small rug in a sleepy house, a dog and a rabbit kept each other safe and warm — proof, to Ava’s mind, that friendship could grow in the most surprising places.