This is service dog and all-round hero, Banner. Earlier this month, she helped to rescue seven newborn kittens who had been left to die in a cardboard box in the woods. Whitney Braley says that she knew something was up when Banner suddenly became distressed and started to pull on her dress outside their home in Georgia, USA. ‘She had been acting really weird all morning,’ says Whitney. ‘I couldn’t understand what was wrong with her. She wasn’t listening to me when I told her to come, which isn’t like her as she is always very well behaved. ‘I knew something had to be wrong. She was getting really distressed.’ Whitney let Banner lead her to the nearby woods and says that her dog dived straight in after she opened a cardboard box, and pulled out a tiny white kitten. She was astonished to find six more ‘barely alive’ kittens inside.

And after bringing them back to her house, Whitney says that Banner refused to leave their side – cleaning, cuddling and napping with the cats as if she was their mother. Whitney says: ‘Someone must have just put them into a cardboard box, closed the lid tight and left them there to die. They probably thought that no one would ever discover them. ‘I don’t even know how Banner knew they were in there. The kittens were freezing and weren’t meowing or anything.