In this week’s news is an amazing story about a
pet and its owner. This time however this pet is not your average dog or fish,
but it is a cheetah. South African born Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, after finding
a lump in her breast. She had to undergo a double mastectomy and chemotherapy
in the hope she would survive, however doctors were extremely worried when they
found out she own a pet cheetah. If Riana was bitten or landed on in the place
she was operated on before it was fully healed it would be game over for her,
but in Riana’s own words ‘my cheetah helped me to recover”.
The 9 year
old cheetah Fiela had an extremely close bond with Riana. So close that they
slept in the same bed and ate dinner together at the table. Riana said that
Fiela knew she was unwell, because she would lick her newly bald head to
comfort her, she would stroke her arm which was in pain from the multiple drips
that were inserted into her, and she would climb up into the bed in a different
way so that Riana would feel no movement or pain.
The
big-hearted survivor now runs the Cheetah Experience in Bloemfontein, South
Africa, where she and Fiela also live. This cheetah santuary is 1 of 4 in the
whole world and is home to 19 cheetahs. Riana said that without Fiela she
wouldn’t have coped, and the fact that she knew she was so unwell and detected
it by herself, made their bond even tighter.
I think this story is really interesting because cancer
is an extremely awful and horrible illness, and can lead to people being
extremely frail, so for this cheetah to have detected that Riana was so ill and
adapted herself to be a gentle and more soft cheetah is extroadinary 
This is a very detailed long and enthusiastic account of the story. However it's important to make note somewhere about where this story came from (Where the article was written and who wrote it) so you can explain why it was written, and why it may have been written in a particular way.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote a good response including a good use of your own personal opinion. To improve you could explain the context of where the article came from, and the purpose of writing it. I also like your use of pictures to enhance the response you wrote.
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