Can you imagine that an animal has helped save your life several times? Well, I sure do! His name is Sophia and he is a dog. We named him after my mom's old motorcycle. He was a tiny, playful little dog when we first got him. Sophia has been my hero because he has helped save my life four times.

The first time was during the early morning. Sophia slept on the warm carpet while I slept in my bed. Before I went to bed, I took a candy into my room with me. It was the one I couldn't have. Soon, I ate it. Very quickly, my throat started to become big, like a balloon filling with air.

Sophia jumped up from his carpet and ran up and down the hallway as fast as his feet could run. Sophia ran into my parents' room and barked loudly, trying to wake up my parents who were sleeping. My parents got up and Sophia quickly led them into my room and called 911. Sophia helped save my life. He has saved my life 3 more times since then and is always at my side. Sophia is seven years old and is very healthy! Sophia is a friend to me in many ways.

I like dogs very much. I think they are very clever and they can do many things for people. I have a little dog. His name is Jim. He is my best friend. Every morning, Jim goes to the store in the neighborhood (附近，邻里). The shop assistant (店员) in the store gives him two things: a sweet (糖果) and a newspaper. Jim eats the sweet and takes the newspaper in his mouth. Then he runs home.

I like reading my newspaper in bed before I get up. Jim knows that and he takes the paper to my bedroom. When I am eating my breakfast, he takes all the letters to me. After that, he goes outside to wait for the bus. When he sees the bus coming down the street, he barks (犬吠). I run out, and the bus stops for me. Jim never lets me miss (错过) the bus.

A woman was walking her dog along a beach in New Zealand in late June when she saw something that looked like a white ball in the sand. It turned out to be a young Emperor Penguin that was lost. At his age, he should have been close to the Antarctic, swimming for fish and playing on the ice floes (冰川). But this penguin started swimming north and just kept going.

The penguin attracted a lot of attention in New Zealand. It has been 40 years since an Emperor Penguin was last seen there. Researchers at the Department of Conservation were called in. They decided to watch the penguin closely, but not to disturb it in any way. Many New Zealanders came to Peka Peka Beach to look at the elegant penguin. They were careful to keep their dogs away from him so he wouldn’t be frightened.

The public nicknamed the animal Happy Feet. Researchers started to notice that Happy Feet didn’t seem well. It turned out that he had been eating the sand from the beach, likely thinking it was snow.

The public raised more than 11, 000 pounds for an operation to get the sand out of his stomach. The operation was a success, and Happy Feet was taken to a zoo in Wellington, NZ. A group of experts met to decide how to help Happy Feet return to the wild.

Last Sunday, they put him on a boat called the Tangaroa, in a specially built ice-filled box and took him out into the Southern Ocean, southeast of New Zealand. There, they released him into the ocean, which is his natural habitat. He took one last look at his human helpers and then dived into the ocean.

“Emperor Penguins spend their first five years at sea,” said Peter Simpson of New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. “What happens now is up to the penguin.”

Happy Feet was fitted with a satellite transmitter (发射机) so they can monitor his progress using the Internet. So far, the trackers show that he swam northeast for a little while before getting his bearings and heading south.