Patron saint (Bernard) of stray cats

The St. Bernard may have been bred as a mountain rescue dog, but for 9-year-old Yankee, the need to nurture has found an unexpected outlet in Iowa.

Yankee has become a source of comfort – and warmth – on cold nights for a collection of wayward cats.  The dog’s owner, Keegan Van Soelen, told the Daily Mail that his family discovered the cats sleeping on their family pooch one morning about a year ago. Then they just kept coming from a nearby barn, especially when it’s cold in winter, and Yankee barely sniffed at his new companions.

‘It looks like a big ball of fur,” Van Soelen told the newspaper. “Many of the cats are the same colour as Yankee’s coat, so sometimes they are hard to see on him.”

He once counted 16 cats nestled up to the dog. It goes to show, sometimes it doesn’t pay to fight like cats and dogs.

h/t Daily Mail Photo Medavia.co.uk

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Recovering newspaper reporter.

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