When a newborn baby hippo was washed up by a flood onto the lawn of his riverside home, the game ranger who found the dying animal lovingly nursed her back to health.
The weakened female survived, put on weight, and grew . . . and g-r-e-w . . . and GREW! Now the hippo that thinks it's a family pet has become a giant-sized problem.
For what started out as a cute, tubby 35lbs baby is now a boisterous seven-year-old - equivalent to a human 'teenager' -.weighing nearly three-quarters of a ton.
And like many modern teenagers, Jessica, as she has been named, finds family life too comfortable and just won't leave home.
The weakened female survived, put on weight, and grew . . . and g-r-e-w . . . and GREW! Now the hippo that thinks it's a family pet has become a giant-sized problem.
For what started out as a cute, tubby 35lbs baby is now a boisterous seven-year-old - equivalent to a human 'teenager' -.weighing nearly three-quarters of a ton.
And like many modern teenagers, Jessica, as she has been named, finds family life too comfortable and just won't leave home.
She eats, sleeps, swims and plays with retired game warden Tonie Joubert and wife Shirley at their home in South Africa.She wanders round the house, drinks coffee on the verandah, hangs out with the pet dogs and enjoys Shirley's soothing massages that help her relax at the end of a happy hippo day.
The hippo greets Tonie, in particular, with special grunts and flicking ears whenever she sees him and follows him like a dog wherever he goes.
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