"To come upon a hippopotamus in the wild would be sobering and cause for serious alarm, but a South African family has become surrogate parents to a hippo in their house as their pampered pet. Jessica the hippo prefers her home creature comforts to a life in the wild as she wanders around their house, eats at their table, drinks sweet coffee, and even gets a massage before she goes to bed."

I love the pics but doubt that this hippo will always be so 'cute'! when the wild come out of her, they will blame the hippo! Wild animals are after al, "wild"! Good luck to them though!

I'm going to try and capture some house hippos. They're much smaller.

I thought hippos were mean.

That is really amazing.

It seems they have the right conditions to look after her, well done to them for saving her life and long may it continue. They all seem very happy.

And she also has her two terrier buddies.

I've seen video footage of her and she's simply gorgeous.

I forgot to mention that there's a video at the source page . I'm not sure if it's the same footage that you've seen Michelle, but it's toward the end of the article.

Thanks Alan. I only noticed the video after I'd commented. Going to watch.

An exception to the Leave Them alone rule...? Maybe. There's a lot of love there, but *messy 'cuz she's not house trained* Yikes!

What a lovely household! Jessica is adorable! I would love to meet her and the rest of her family. Seeing her with the dogs curled up beside or on her, and with her blankets, has me smiling from ear to ear. And watching her come to the door with one of the dogs and enter the house (insisting on being first) made me laugh out loud.

You know, stories like this help restore a bit of faith in humanity.

A clip like this gets my vote, who takes it for a walk??

hippo or not it reminds me that when i was a kid it looked quite natural to me that "we" all creatures share the same language thus may communicate and co-exist simply - in peace.