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Hello, it's Ruby here and you're listening to Newstime.
Hello, Ruby.
Hey there, Ruby.
While we warm up the Newstime machine for 2026, we've been taking a look back at some favourite stories from 2025.
This Newstime episode is all about awesome animals.
You'll hear about a groovy seal, some helpful hounds and a law-breaking duck.
Here we go.
Story number five.
If you've ever been in hospital or you've visited someone in hospital, you might have seen some scruffy four-legged friends wandering around.
I'm talking about therapy dogs.
Treating like people could like cheering them up.
Because you can just pat them and then it's like you feel like they know what you're feeling.
Spot on.
In Canberra Hospital's intensive care unit, Harry the Cocker Spaniel is a resident therapy dog.
That means he spends an hour at a time with each patient often sitting on their bed and getting a nice big scratch.
I would feel very happy and I feel like I would just want to stay all night and I would want it to stay with me until I left, pet it and play fetch and run around with it.
Yep, some patients can get some outside time to throw a ball, but lots can't get out of their beds.
That's why it's great that harry can come to them.
Researchers at canberra hospital have found that therapy dogs help reduce worry and pain in patients and they give them and their families a sense of hope.
In fact, Lots of people get talking about the pets they're missing back home.
Not every canine can be a therapy dog.
Harry and his fellow therapy dogs went through six months of training and testing before they were unleashed on the hospital floor.
From all reports.
Harry loves spending time with others and his best trick of all is bringing smiles to people's faces.
You're a good dog, you're a good dog, you're a good dog.
I'm patting it.
Story number four.
In the Kosciuszko National Park, there's a tiny critter.
It's got a little pink nose, a little mousy tail and it's only about as heavy as an egg a flying fox.
It's a baby possum.
When I was in Cradle Mountain, I saw a mama possum. carrying a baby possum on its back.
It's a pygmy possum.
I saw it on the TV.
You know your stuff.
This is the mountain pygmy possum, a rather cute but quite endangered species.
It's been hit hard in recent years by droughts and bushfires.
Five years ago it was estimated there were only about 700 of these cute little possums left in the national park.
But now, scientists say the population's grown and it's at about 950.
Awesome.
Good job, scientists.
It's the only animal that can dig through snow and dig through dirt.
Yes, indeed.
They are the only small animal that hibernates under the snow in Australia, so they are very special.
They also depend on the bogong moth.
That is awesome, because moths are so annoying and possums are so cute.
Well, bogong moths aren't your usual moth that flutters around bright lights at night.
These moths are the main food source of the pygmy possum.
You might remember hearing on Newstime about a local school who made bogong bickies with macadamia nuts and mealworm and oil.
Bees helped the possums eat and find nutrients when the number of bogong moths decreased.
Now the hard work of those biscuit makers can be seen in the increase in mountain pygmy possums.
So they can save the endangered species of pygmy possum to save all the tiny little lives.
Good teamwork everyone.
Story number three.
Everyone knows how important it is to look after our teeth.
We've got to brush them twice a day and visit the dentist every so often too.
But what about our animal friends?
They need dental care too.
And that's the job of animal dentists or veterinary dentists.
They operate on animals big and small.
You can imagine that some animals would be a little bit trickier than others to care for.
Probably a mouse because it's got tiny teeth.
Maybe a great white shark because it could eat you and then nobody can do its teeth.
Yikes!
You might be right about that.
Recently, an animal dentist named David got a phone call from Melbourne Zoo.
They needed him to come and operate on their cat, a very big cat.
It was a Sumatran tiger.
David had lots of experience caring for the teeth of cats and dogs, but a tiger?
That was a brand new challenge.
Do they actually have an animal to sleep with special medicine or are they just awake?
Lucky for David, Hootan the tiger was given an anaesthetic.
That put him to sleep for two hours and that gave David and his team plenty of time to fix his very big teeth.
I think he felt like sorry, maybe because I don't think animals should be getting dentist appointments.
What's wrong with its teeth?
Well, Hutan the tiger had cracked teeth from chomping on bones at the zoo and three teeth needed treatment.
Fortunately, Hutan had very good care because in the wild, an injury like that could be fatal.
What do you think Hutan said when he woke up after the operation?
He said nothing because he's a tiger.
I think he said like in his mind because he can't speak human language or english.
He said that wasn't actually that bad because i thought i would be awake, they would wake up and say well, hutan is a tiger.
A few words and soon he was back to his habitat to enjoy the sunshine.
Sumatran tigers need good care.
They are critically endangered.
There are fewer than 400 of them left in the wild.
400 is a lot, but not that much if you're counting an entire species.
Congratulations, dentist David, on one jawsome effort.
Story number two.
OK, let's jump on a plane now and fly to Switzerland, where a very curious creature has shown up on a road speed camera.
If you're speeding, the police comes to you.
Speed cameras sit next to main roads and take photos of things going past that are moving faster than the speed limit.
Speeding is illegal, so you can get a fine if you're caught.
Recently in Switzerland, something was caught on camera travelling 52 kilometres an hour in a 30 kilometer an hour zone, like a tiger or a cheetah.
Maybe they escaped from a zoo, or maybe somebody was trying to hunt them so they had to run away.
Maybe it was a runaway truck?
A bird yes, you've got it, it was a bird.
But it wasn't just any bird.
This lawbreaker was a duck.
It flew past the speed camera 22 kilometers an hour faster than the speed limit.
That's like, because I didn't know birds, especially ducks, can fly that fast.
I think the duck got, like, $3,000 fine.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Local police say this duck hasn't been given any bills to pay, but they did say it's not the first time this duck has been caught on camera.
In fact, it was busted flying at the same speed on the same date seven years ago.
Locals are curious now.
What exactly could this feathered felon be up to?
Put it in the Olympics.
Maybe it's practising at night.
And then it's going to break the world record.
Maybe it was trying out for a movie.
Now there's an idea.
Coming soon to a cinema near you, The Fast and the Ridiculous.
OK, friends, we have officially waddled our way to... Wow of the Week.
This story made me go wow because how could it do that?
This story made me go wow because no other sea lion can do that.
Sea lions are incredible creatures.
They can hold their breath underwater for about 16 minutes.
They swallow food whole instead of chewing and they also have toenails on their hind flippers.
And that's not all.
One Californian sea lion named Ronan has been trained to do something amazing.
I think that he might be able to go hop, hop, hop, hop, hop and understand humans.
Hop, hop.
Maybe he can swim so fast that he can swim as fast as a cheetah.
Not quite.
Ronan has been trained to bob her head in time to music.
That was a treat.
And then they were like, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
And I would just keep on chasing after it.
When she was young, Ronan was trained to nod to the groove of a ticking metronome.
That's a machine that keeps time.
Recently, researchers have been testing her to see if she can bop her head in time with a snare drum which is played at different speeds.
Then they asked 10 humans to move their arms to the same speeds.
And guess what?
Ronan was better at keeping the beat every single time.
I think she should maybe turn into a musician.
Like maybe you could make up the seabed that um, All the sea creatures that you know that are really good and talented.
You just play a beat and then she's like, bash, bash, bash, bash, bash, bash.
And then you move the drum kit around so she'd play music.
You might be onto something, because now scientists believe they might be able to train other animals to keep a beat too.
For now though, Ronan holds the title of the animal kingdom's grooviest headbanger.
And that's it.
Next week you'll get some brand new stories and plus keep an eye on your feeds for a bonus episode on Wednesday.
You won't want to miss it.
See you later.
Bye baby.
Bye.
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