Nothing, it seems, melts the heart of a hardened news editor like a photo of a dog shacking up with a giraffe or a cat nursing a skunk. The internet is also awash with tales of unlikely friendships between monkeys and pigeons or otters and badgers, many of which are stunts or hoaxes.

The latest pictures are from Virginia and show Honey, a golden retriever, suckling a kitten called Precious, a stray rescued from a busy road. “She started licking her and loving her. Within a couple of days, Honey started naturally lactating,” owner Kathy said. “The kitten took right to her, and she started nursing her.”

Interspecies suckling between our two favourite pets is rare but not unknown, presumably because we often thrust them together.

It works both ways: in February, a rottweiler-cross puppy was photographed being suckled by Satin the cat, alongside her kittens, at a home for abandoned pets.

There are cases of more exotic interspecies suckling. Last month, pictures apparently showed a 10-year-old Chihuahua called Mimi who was nursing four motherless baby squirrels in Jacksonville, in the US. Cats have also been known to suckle baby squirrels.

Earlier this year, it was reported that three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother were living with pigs at Chimelong safari park in China; a tiger has also been photographed “suckling” pigs wrapped in fake tiger furs in Thailand, although this was widely believed to be a hoax.

Andrew Routh, chief veterinary officer at the Zoological Society of London, says interspecies rearing in the wild is “very unlikely” and London Zoo does not resort to it because of a risk of spreading disease and raising animals that don’t behave naturally. “

In the Far East, dogs and pigs have reared tiger cubs, but that isn’t something we advocate,” he says, “because I’m not sure the tiger knows what it is.”

The mammal most taken with interspecies rearing is almost certainly human beings. Anthropologists say that some indigenous mothers in Papua New Guinea have been known to suckle pigs. Tori Amos was even pictured in album artwork breastfeeding a piglet. Most commonly, however, millions of our babies are reared on cow’s milk.