tiny

Us humans take months, sometimes over a year to take our first steps, while many animals only ever take a couple minutes. But some animal babies are capable of even more than that, like these tiny totally safe-to-cuddle bear cubs who have already perfected the art of climbing trees at their tini-tiny age. 

It's an experience every tiny bear cub will go through at some point in their lives, and not only is it insanely impressive, it is also incredibly cute. So, take a look at these pawdoable bear cubs taking their first steps (up a tree) with their mommies there to help and protect them and enjoy your heart melting of cute. 

Anyone who has ever walked a dog knows that dogs are absolute magnets of attention. People stop, people wanna pet, sometimes you'll even start up a conversation with another dog owner and well, since your dogs are friends now, you kinda have to be friends too. Maybe you'll even find your future lady companion through one of these dog-initiated meetings.  

Basically, dogs are the best chick magnets, but this time, we mean it literally. Dogs are total BFFs with chicks. Tiny yellow chicks. And it's so adorable it hurts. So, yes, even literally, dogs are better chick magnets than all of us. 

We have always wondered what life would be like if huge, terrifying dragons were flying in our skies like in movies or stories, but we have never realized that actually dragons are real and they live in our world already. Well, almost. They're actually tiny crocodile skinks, but they totally look like dragons, just of the cut variety rather than the scary variety.

Crocodiles kind of look like dragons already, let's be real. And for some reason, we don't give the royal dragon-like love and respect that they deserve. The fact that these crocodiles are so cute and tiny is only a bonus really, and it's the best bonus of all. 

It's your necessary daily prescription of tiny animal cuteness, this time starring the softest, most adorable, one of the only animals in Australia who don't want to eat you (unless you scare them)... the koala! A harmless, eucalyptus-eating fluffball that every animal lover wants to experience holding at least once in their life - just to be fully certain that they are indeed as soft as they look. 

We have yet to make that confirmation ourselves, so we have to sustain ourselves and our endless curiosity by simply looking at pictures of the soft-looking creatures. And since we know that there is nothing cuter than baby animals, and there is (almost) nothing as soft looking as koalas, we put the two of them together and created the biggest adorableness explosion yet, with tiny baby koalas. 

Found in below freezing temperatures last month, Xerxes the kitten has officially been adopted by the good man who saved her! She was only five-weeks-old then, hanging off the side of one of the truck tires, with her tail and paws completely frozen to the metal surface, trapping her. 9NEWS reports that to free the kitten without causing her additional pain, the man who found her splashed warm water on the areas of the tire to which her pas and tail were stuck, gently removing her paws and tail from the tire.

The man brought the kitten to the Denver Dumb Friends League (DDFL), wrapped up in tiny blankets to keep her warm, where she received the care she needed as well as the name Xerxes. On Monday, after recovering, she has officially been adopted into the forever home of the man who saved her. "Before her adoption, Xerxes spent time in a foster home where her frostbitten paws recovered, and her initially frightened exterior began to crumble," DDFL recounted. "Healed and healthy, Xerxes is settling in with her new family."

They add that, without the help of the man who saved her, the kitten would have most likely not survived through the night. So, we can only be thankful, encourage others to help the little creatures in need that they come across, and thank every savior we hear about for doing the right thing. 

Right as we needed it, @RllGJUlCE comes to the rescue with the most enormous twitter thread of wholesomeness we've seen in a loooong time. We wanna thank this user for taking the time and collecting all of these heartwarming pictures of what we truly believe are animals that don't get nearly as much love as they deserve. 

So, it's time to give them that love. Since the thread is SO huge, we've put here the pictures that made us smile the hardest. To see the rest of them, go give the original thread some love. But for now, let's fill up with love for these deserving of appreciation farm animals.

We are on a hat roll! Seriously, in the past few weeks, we've seen hedgehogs in tiny hats for all occasions, we've seen bunnies in hats, we've seen Halloween-inspired hat gear for animals, and also just a variety of cute animals donning the stylish outerwear. If there's something we can't seem to get enough of is animals in hats. 

We're here to add to our animal-hat-wearing-collection but showcasing they adorable danger noodles wearing some stylish hats! There is an entire subreddit dedicated to the art of hats for snakes and it's just the kind of content we need in our lives. 

A majority of these images are of an adorable 8-year-old Ball Python named Snakey. Snakey loves going on adventures, he is friendly and curious and definitely adorable. You can follow Snakey on Facebook to be kept up to date on his latest fashion wear!

We know that dogs are some of the nicest, gentlest creatures, but there's always some worry about the reaction the family pet will have to the new baby. It's hard, we're worried about both the baby and the dog - don't want the baby to be hurt or scared and don't want the doggo to be getting jealous of the new human in the house who will be getting endless attention. 

There's no reason to worry though, not with dogs, because dogs are absolutely amazing. More often than not, dogs become best friends with the tiny new humans, and we get to watch them grow up together and be each other's best friends. And it might be one of the most wholesome things we ever get to see, our gorgeous little gentle giant doggos growing up with our little tiny human babies. 

There's something particularly aww-worthy about large scary men hanging out with tiny animals. It's just... not what your brain expects to see. You expect big large scary man to have big large doggo. So, when you see a dude-bro hanging out with a small kitten and your brain catches up with it... the immediate reaction is: "AWWWWWWW."

You know what makes what makes that even cuter? When the big large scary man is scared of the tini-tiny little puppy. 

A tumblr thread about stories just like these - of large men being scared of/totally enamored by tiny little animals is one of the site's absolute gems, and we always go "aww" when we see it. So, today, we're sharing this tumblr classic with you. 

Is there anything more wholesome than tini-tiny widdle animals? We don't think so. Whether it's tiny frogs, tiny crabs, tiny pigs, or any other tiny being, their little smol selves have a way of sneaking into our hearts like nothing else. 

We honestly hadn't realized how adorable and tiny pigs could be for a while, but once we saw a tiny piggy, that's it, game over, our hearts were stolen. We couldn't look away. Looking at these tiny oinkers truly brings us joy, and we hope they'll do the same for you. But if tiny is not what you're looking for, we've got some giant kitty floofers for you to check out. 

They're tiny, they're cute, they have huge ears, but it's winter, so it's cold, and ears must stay warm. What's the solution? Hats of course. But oh no, bunny's ears don't always fit in the hat, so holes must be cut out of the hat, and doesn't that defeat the point? Yes, it does.  

No matter. Bunnies, ears outside or inside of hats, are wholesome and adorable and nothing but pure good. And because getting a dose of cute is never not necessary, we bring you pictures that are nothing but. So, enjoy these fancy little happy hopping creatures in their beautiful little hats, and have a hoppin' good week because nobunny compares to you!

We all know that there's something special about being held in your mother's arms. It's a unique kind of soft and warm. It makes us feel protected even now that we're older but especially when we were little babies. 

It's the same for animals. For them too, there is something special about being held and carried by mom, whether it's dogs or cats or swans. And since we all feel like we could use a hug right about now, and there's nothing better in the world than a big strong hug from mom, we've brought you some of the most wholesome and sweetest pictures we could find of mother's love in nature in the form of little tiny baby swans getting carried around and being sheltered by their mommas. 

In New Jersey, when coronavirus cases were high and most of the state was sheltering at home, a little one-room NICU Kitten Nursery that has saved hundreds of little kittens had to close its doors. 

nj.com reports that, since "[t]he space was too small to safely social distance," a veterinary technician with St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center named Friedman who was also the manager of the nursery and a vet tech called Nick Eckert "took the animals into their own homes to care for them." Dozens of kittens, many of them badly injured and desperately in need of help. 

"It was very depressing that when we should have been celebrating our one-year anniversary, we were moving our nursery into our homes," said Friedman. "I was terrified that we would lose the program because of COVID-19. And I knew that because of COVID-19, it was critical to keep the program going." No one was popping in to help, and there was no team of volunteers coming in and out to help the kittens.

"I literally had kittens being dropped off at my house at midnight almost every night," Friedman tells nj.com "It was the hardest work I ever had to do because I was by myself."

Now, not only was their operation in their homes successful and they are able to keep helping the kittens, their nursery is expanding, so much so that they had to move the make-shift nursery out of their homes and into a bigger location - "three times the size - complete with 28 cages and multiple rooms to provide separate spaces for healthy, sick, and critical kittens."

The problem is that, even with more space, the nursery can't take in many more new kittens since they do not have the volunteer support that they need. "We can't run this program without volunteers," explained Friedman. So, now, they are looking for volunteers, and we hope that if you are in the area and are able to help, you would lend a helping hand to this wonderful operation and help them help these incredible kittens.

Read about some of the rescued kittens and their stories below! And if you're in need of more positive, happy-ending rescue stories, read about this feisty little owl that got its wings singed off in a fire.