--- title: This Baby Giraffe and Baby Elephant Are Best Friends description: There is nothing better than an inter-species friendship canonical: https://time.com/4088776/baby-giraffe-baby-elephant-best-friends/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-27T21:25:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:58.362Z og:title: This Baby Giraffe and Baby Elephant Are Best Friends og:description: There is nothing better than an inter-species friendship og:url: https://time.com/4088776/baby-giraffe-baby-elephant-best-friends/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Baby Giraffe and Baby Elephant Are Best Friends twitter:description: There is nothing better than an inter-species friendship twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Baby Giraffe and Baby Elephant Are Best Friends > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Inside the Canine Mind [Watch (HLS stream): Inside the Canine Mind](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/dTemQHb7.m3u8) (2:08)  _Published 2009-09-11. Professor Brian Hare at Duke University studies people's pet dogs to understand how canines think_ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 27, 2015 9:25 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 27, 2015 9:25 PM UTC On the surface, Kiko and Loboito have little in common. Kiko is tall and gangly and a bit shy, while Loboito is boisterous with stubby little legs and a ridiculously long nose. But their differences haven’t stopped them from striking up an adorable friendship that can warm the cockles of any heart. Kiko is a one-month old reticulated giraffe who was rescued by Kenya wildlife workers after his parents were killed. When he was brought to the animal sanctuary, he was still too small to sleep with the other giraffes. Instead he was housed next to the elephants, and it was there that he met Loboito, a three-week old orphaned elephant calf. The two orphans struck up an unlikely, inter-species friendship that makes it feel like everything is right in the world. ## Transcript >> Henry. >> Henry. >> Henry. >> Henry. >> Okay. The mission of the Duke Canine Cognition Center-- >> One, two, three, go. >> is to understand dog Psychology in a way that people really haven't been looking at dogs until very recently. Dogs have shared an evolutionary history with us over the last 10, 000 or 15, 000 years at least. They solve problems more like we do, in many cases, more like we do than our closest relatives, Chimpanzees and Bonobos. We wanna study people's pets because there's no dog on the planet that's more sophisticated than a dog that has to manipulate or understand what its owner wishes, and what its owner is trying to get it to do. >> Henry. >> One of the games that we are presenting is a very simple game to try to understand how dogs understand our gestural communication. >> Here we go. Good job, Henry. >> The question is how do dogs understand that information and how do they use it? We wanna understand what, is the effect of domestication on dog psychology. >> We'll let them meet and then we could know, and then maybe he'll calm down. >> Hello. This is Bruno. >> Why is it that some breeds solve problems differently than others? >> Where is it? I don't have it. >> Since he's doing so good we're just gonna use his gaze or which cup he's standing closest to as his choice. >> The goal of all the research is really to understand what is it about our species that is so unique or different? >> Bruno! [ unk ] or dad? Boy, this is crazy business you're making me do. He's like, why don't you just give me the food? Bruno! Okay bye, Bruno. >> Bye, Bruno! >> Bye! Thanks for coming! Here you go-- one more for the road, Bruno, one more for the road. There you go big guy. 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