History Main / PetBabyWildAnimal

* ''Film/BornFree:'' BasedOnATrueStory about the difficulty of reintroducing a lion raised in captivity to the wild.

* In 1969, Anthony "Ace" Bourke and John Rendall purchased a lion cub (whom they named Christian) from Harrods on a whim, and raised him as their own. As he grew bigger, they realized they wouldn't be able to keep him, so they sent him to Korra National Reserve[[note]]which was upgraded to National Park status in 1989[[/note]], Kenya, where George Adamson -- who had rehabilitated Elsa the lioness with his wife, Joy (chronicled in ''Born Free'')-- helped him transition to life in the wild. John and Ace were told when they went to visit Christian the next year that he might not remember them; on the contrary, he was ''very'' happy to see them again.(In 2009, the video of their reunion was upload to Website/YouTube, and quickly went viral.)

* Two men in England raised a lion from a cub. As he grew bigger, they realized they wouldn't be able to keep him, so they released him in a reserve in Africa. They were told when they went to visit him the next year that the lion might not remember them; on the contrary, he was ''very'' happy to see them again. (Look on Website/YouTube for 'Christian the Lion'.)

* A few Native American nations were reported to raise skunks from infancy and keep them as pets for children, though true domestication of skunks didn't start until the 1950s.

* Cheetahs are surprisingly easy to tame, but they rarely breed in captivity. This resulted in severe decline in cheetah populations a couple of centuries ago, when it became fashionable to train them as hunting animals in Arab countries.

* The manga by Osamu Tezuka ''Manga/BlackJack'' treats this several times, and one of these stories is particularly cruel... [[spoiler: A young and naïve scientist who's a friend of Dr. Black Jack uses a little deer in his experiments, raising his intelligence to almost human levels, and then adopts it as his family since both are orphans. The animal develops a morbose affection for his caretaker... so much that, when the man gets married and mentions it to his animal friend, he almost kills the wife. Not content with that, when Black Jack attempts to operate on the poor woman to save her, the deer appears and attacks them, so the scientist has to [[ShootTheDog shoot the animal away]]. [[BittersweetEnding The deer walks away from them, never to be seen, but at least the doc's spouse gets better]].]]

** [[spoiler:It turns out the crew never intended to leave Laboon for so long but ended up having really bad luck. A large portion of the crew became ill and separated to prevent more from becoming sick (which was what was reported as them fleeing) and the rest were sucked into a Bermuda Triangle-like place and killed. All except Brook, whose powers allowed him to come back to life and who is currently traveling with the Straw Hat crew and plans to reunite with the whale and give it the dead crew's final message: a recording of Laboon's favorite song played by the last members as they died.]]

** This is a major plot point in a multi-part special in the Anime. In the special, a young CharacterOfTheDay has befriended a baby Lugia (making Lugia one of the few Legendary Pokemon to have a confirmed breeding population in the wild ([[GameplayAndStorySegregation Though, you cannot breed Lugia in the games themselves]]) and has named him "Silver". However, Team Rocket uses the boy's friendship with Silver to find the adult Lugia and turn it "evil" by enraging it so they can use it for their own evil plans. Because it's too risky for them to spend time together, the boy and Silver are forced to part ways with one another.
** In another episode one of the many Nurse Joys (and the only one with a unique appearance thanks to her deep tan) rescued a baby Magikarp that was stranded on the beach when she was a little girl. Years later the same Magikarp, which had become a rather huge specimen, rescued her when she fell overboard a ship. In the present they remain good friends. When Team Rocket attacks, the Magikarp's desire to protect Nurse Joy prompts its evolution into [[MagikarpPower Gyarados.]] After a tense moment, Gyarados shows that it's just as affectionate as ever.

** In another episode one of the many Nurse Joys (and the only one with a unique appearance thanks to her deep tan) rescued a baby Magikarp that was stranded on the beach when she was a little girl. Years later the same Magikarp, which had become a rather huge specimen, rescued her when she fell overboard a ship. In the present they remain good friends. When Team Rocket attacks, the Magikarp's desire to protect Nurse Joy prompts its evolution into [[MagikarpPower Gyarados]]. After a tense moment, Gyarados shows that it's just as affectionate as ever.
** In "Wings N' Things", a character named Zachery Evans raised a Yanma who was injured during a storm. Things go well until it started breaking windows, causing the townspeople ans his dad to get mad, so he decided to let it go. But that changed when Team rocket tried to use it destroy the glass windows with the Pokemon. The boy eventually was able to keep the Pokemon and trained it to stop breaking windows.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' had a story arc in which Calvin found and brought home a baby raccoon; it was already severely injured when he found it, and died overnight. Besides showing the rarer compassionate side of Calvin, the story also explained that death was sometimes inevitable, and the best you could do was make the victim comfortable.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Wolves tend to subvert this. While a wolf is willing to (grudgingly) submit to a human, he will attempt to take charge and force his 'master' to submit, at the first given opportunity. Although cases where the wolf remained on good terms with the person who raised it, are not unheard of. Of note, wolves are fairly manageable for those who know what they're doing and have the proper means (and licensing) to own one. On the other hand, wolf-dogs, due to the mixing of wild and domestic ancestry, are often so extremely unpredictable that they simply cannot be kept as pets even by very experienced people.

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[folder:FanWorks]]
* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' fiction ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6697660/13/The-Discworld-Tarot The Discworld Tarot]]'' illustrates Strength with the tale of how an Assassins' Guild School teacher adopts an orphaned lion cub and it becomes, well, a house-cat for ''Assassins''. Until Lord Downey puts his foot down and insists it be returned to the Zoo where it belongs.

[[folder:Films - Animated]]

[[folder:Films - Live-Action]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' had a story arc in which Calvin found and brought home a baby raccoon; it was already severely injured when he found it, and died overnight. Besides showing the rarer compassionate side of Calvin, the story also explained that death was sometimes inevitable, and the best you could do was make the victim comfortable.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sound FX]]
* The [[AudioAdaptation second Sound Stage]] of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' revealed that Arf has this as her backstory. She was a terminally ill wolf pup that Fate temporarily turned into a {{familiar}} [[EmergencyTransformation so that she can save her]] with the intent of letting her go by making a MagicallyBindingContract that lets Arf do whatever she wants with her given life. Arf, however, had been very impressed by Fate's compassion by that point, and when it was her turn to put in her part of the contract, [[UndyingLoyalty she stated that she will stay by Fate's side until the end of her life]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]

* There is an ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' short story in which the Wolfrider elves prevent a human from killing a wolf. The human tells them that he and his wife had raised the animal from a cub, only for it to kill their infant son. The Wolfriders, who are naturally familiar with wolf behavior, tell the man that the wolf was only obeying its instincts, and that he should not have let his son play with it unsupervised. The Wolfriders adopt the animal, but it can't adapt to life in the wild or integrate with their wolfpack. Eventually it runs back to its former master, and the elves can only speculate as to whether the human will kill it or give it a second chance. The story is apparently intended as [[{{Anvilicious}} a warning to fans]] about the dangers of owning a real wolf or wolf/dog hybrid.

* [[Comicbook/{{AmadeusCho}} Amadeus Cho]] adopted a Coyote cub he named Cerberus (Kirby for short) while on the run. He eventually had to give it up when they separated and it mated, forgetting about him entirely.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/TheYearling https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yearling_5.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/squirlbottl.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[CutenessOverload Awwwwww!]]]]

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/BornFree:'' BasedOnATrueStory about the difficulty of reintroducing a lion raised in captivity to the wild.
* The movie ''Film/{{Cheetah}}'' is about two American teenagers who find an orphaned cheetah cub while vacationing in Kenya. When they have to return to the U.S., they plan to release her back into the wild. Unlike most examples, they do acknowledge the difficulties involved and get advice from a game warden on how to teach their cheetah how to hunt for herself and survive in the wild.
* ''Film/FlyAwayHome'' is about a girl who rescues a nest of goslings to adulthood, and then must teach them how to fly and then migrate for the winter. Here, the girl enjoys a compromise, the birds are returned to the wild, but her farm is their regular migration destination in the spring. This was VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: They were experimenting with geese (which are in no way endangered) as a way for finding ways to [[https://web.archive.org/web/20001109111700/http://www.operationmigration.org/index.html reintroduce Whooping cranes,]] raised in captivity, to the wild.
* ''Film/TwoBrothers'' has each of the two tiger cub brothers being raised as pets. One of them is kept as the pet of a child, however after it attacks the family dog, it is sold to prince that trains it to be a fighting tiger. The other is kept by a hunter, but is confiscated when he is arrested and sold to a circus. When both tigers escape, the hunter explains to the child that tigers raised in captivity tend to become man eaters if they escape to the wild, because they never learn how to hunt.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'', this is how Timon and Pumbaa essentially take on Simba at first.
-->'''Pumba''': Can we keep him?

* ''Film/FlyAwayHome'' is about a girl who rescues a nest of goslings to adulthood, and then must teach them how to fly and then migrate for the winter. Here, the girl enjoys a compromise, the birds are returned to the wild, but her farm is their regular migration destination in the spring. This was VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: They were experimenting with geese (which are in no way endangered) as a way for finding ways to [[http://www.operationmigration.org/index.html reintroduce Whooping cranes,]] raised in captivity, to the wild.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[CutenessOverload Awwwwww!]] ]]

-->--The [[AnAesop aesop]] of the PBS ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' episode "The Baby Chipmunk"

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Utawarerumono}}'', the little girl Aruruu raises a huge, nearly invincible tiger from a cub. Later the animal becomes a valuable ally in battles.

*** [[FriendToAllLivingThings Fluttershy]] has a wildly disparate horde of WoodlandCritters living on her property, although it's not clear whether they're pets, roommates or squatters; she loves them all nonetheless. However, this is a subversion, as ponies in this incarnation of the franchise are sort of [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows stewards of nature]], with the care of wildlife falling under their domain. In other words, she's essentially taken this up as an occupation, and a valid one at that.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends'' has the episode "Pony Puppy", where the ponies look after a gigantic puppy that was separated from her friends.
* [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Friendship Is Magic]]
** [[FunPersonified Pinkie Pie]] owns a pet alligator - Gummy.
** [[FriendToAllLivingThings Fluttershy]] has a wildly disparate horde of animals living on her property, although it's not clear whether they're pets or squatters; she loves them all nonetheless. However, this is a subversion, as ponies in this incarnation of the franchise are sort of [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows stewards of nature]], with the care of wildlife falling under their domain. In other words, she's essentially taken this up as an occupation, and a valid one at that.
** Spike gets a pet [[spoiler:phoenix hatchling]] after the events of "Dragon Quest", though in "Just For Sidekicks" it's revealed in a PhotoMontage that he returned the little guy to the wild.

* Amanda Nyanko from The Youtubemans. She has a pet tiger she trained to attack specific people. She adopted him in the first episode which was released in 2008 after The San Diego Zoo let her adopt a tiger. Her new family is rich enough to let her afford it

* In ''Disney/TheLionKing'', this is how Timon and Pumbaa essentially take on Simba at first.

* ''The Old Woman Who Raised a Bear as Her Son'' is a Canadian special based on a traditional Inuit folktale about a polar bear cub who was adopted by an old woman. The bear eventually grows into a large adult that attracts the enimity of a hunter, but when the hunter goes after the bear, but is killed another wild bear he attacked by mistake. Although she knows the truth, the Old Woman sends the bear away for his own safety, but not before a young boy marks the bear with black markings to remind that he is still loved.

-->--The[[note]]Rather questionable on that first part[[/note]] [[AnAesop aesop]] of the PBS ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' episode "The Baby Chipmunk"

* ''MyLittlePony'' has an episode where the ponies look after a gigantic puppy that was separated from her friends.

** Fluttershy has a wildly disparate horde of animals living on her property, although it's not clear whether they're pets or squatters; she loves them all nonetheless. All told her little animal habitat appears to be an aversion, as ponies in this incarnation of the franchise are sort of [[PaintingTheFrostOnWindows stewards of nature]], with the care of wildlife falling under the domain of earth ponies[[note]]"vanilla horses" without unicorn horns or pegasus wings, but an innate connection to the planet[[/note]]. Fluttershy is a bit of an oddball, as a pegasus specializing in animal care instead of weather manipulation.
** Spike gets a pet [[spoiler: phoenix hatchling]] after the events of "Dragon Quest", though in "Just For Sidekicks" it's revealed in a PhotoMontage he returned the little guy to the wild.