“I am leaving home.” When Timmy, my 10-year-old son eagerly announced that he couldn’t wait to ________, the feeling of guilt peaked as I tried to figure out the ________.

“So, I can get a dog,’’ he stressed.

But I stayed ________—we didn’t need a dog to complete our life— and he gave up. Until the day I ________ Timmy, with his brother, discussing his moving plan. Suddenly, the situation ________: gain a dog or ________ a child, I felt my determination ________. “We can look into it,” I replied doubtfully, but the kind of dog we wanted cost a ________ $ 1,000! Yes, love had a price. I ________ for thought, again.

I shared my present ________ with my friend whose love for dogs was quite sensible. He ________ me to his pet keeper friend who got a pregnant (怀孕的) dog and the baby dogs were due soon. A few days later, we took a surprise trip to the countryside when the little dogs were ________. I would admit that all my previous ________ reappeared after watching a group of blind things, but it was too late. Among screams of 5________, we chose one of the little dogs as ours.

We attempt to ________ our kids in a healthy way—I didn’t realize the added dimension (方面) of love and ________ that a dog would teach my kids. On a hot day, Timmy cut short his outing to ________ if Odie, the dog, had enough water. When Odie was sick, my elder son made fresh soup and ________ fed it to him.

My children no longer talk about leaving home ________ there is the troublesome issue of who will take the dog. They quietly learn how to give and receive love. If having a dog means linking my children even closer together, it will be a mother’s prayer ________.

The griffon vulture (兀鹫) is an endangered species. _________, conservationists have been training cameras on some of their nests to try to _________ them.

This year they’ve been watching a family _________ on a cliff (悬崖). The pair had single chick. All was going _________ until the mother was killed when she flew into power lines, which are the biggest _________ to the huge birds.

The vultures have to fly far and wide to _________ food, and the experts knew that the father would not be able to provide enough _________ for the chick on his own. The only way to _________ the chick appeared to be to send climbers up to the nest and take it into captivity (圈养). But then someone suggested a different _________ and within a few days of the mother’s death she had a rescuer — Mama Drone (无人机). The drone has been dropping food to the chick every two or three days.

Getting to the cliff isn’t __________. It requires precision flying. They also __________ a drone that would be non-threatening to the chick and other rare __________ in the area.

XTEND is a cutting-edge drone company that __________ in giving operators a pilot’s-eye view. Virtual reality puts the __________ in the drone’s driving seat, as it were. With the company’s __________, the conservationists prepared for the mission by making a __________ of the nest site in their base. Operators __________ practice flights for hours to prepare themselves for the real thing.

And mission Mama Drone has worked out __________. All those involved got the reward they’d __________ earlier this week. The chick __________ for the first time.

In 1999, Eve and Norman Fertig, a couple, saved a two-week-old shepherd (牧羊犬) named Shana.

One winter several years later, as the Fertigs, both then 81, ________ the injured and hungry animals housed in one of their buildings, a ________ snowstorm blew in. When the couple went outside to check the weather, several trees fell,________ them in a narrow path between two ________. Eve and Norman couldn’t climb over or duck below the ________. For the next two and a half hours, they crowded together for ________ as the snow piled higher. “We were ________,” Eve said. “I thought we could die out here.”

Around 9:30 pm, Shana , who was outside, began ________ toward Eve and Norman in the deep snow. It took her nearly two hours, but ________ she cleared a narrow tunnel(隧道)about 20 feet long ________ the front door of the main house with the Fertigs’ ________.

When breaking through the snow and ________ the couple, the 160-pound dog barked and caught Eve’s jacket and________ the 86-pound woman onto her back. Norman ________ Eve’s ankles, and for the next two hours, Shana pulled the couple through the tunnel.

Thanks to Shana’s ________, they finally reached the house around 2 am., and the Fertigs ________ to get just inside the front door. Extremely ________, they lay there, still. The storm had ________ the electricity and heat, ________ Shana slept next to them all night to keep them warm until the firemen found them.

After five months, Shana’s feet recovered from the injuries she ________ while digging.