A Michigan family did a white elephant gift exchange for Christmas, and one of the gifts was a lottery ticket that hit for $500,000.  25-year-old Emily Hickox got the ticket, but not until after the exchange was over.  She got a flashlight her dad bought . . . and he wanted it back, so they swapped.  Her cousin bought the ticket, and Emily says she’s sharing some of the money with them, and with her dad…………… Forest rangers in Northern California saved a goose they found stranded 10,000 feet up a mountain.  They joked that it obviously wasn’t prepared for the cold up there . . . because it was only wearing “one layer of down”. They were able to offer the goose a quick descent to a local pond at lower elevations before returning to regular duties………And finally………. 

A dog in Istanbul, Turkey showed up at a vet’s office carrying a sick puppy in her mouth.  Earlier that day, someone found one of her pups and brought it in, and it appears she followed them there with the other one.  Both puppies were close to death, but they’ll be okay – sadly, the mother arrived later with a third pup who didn’t make it. The vet believes the dog had given birth weeks earlier but was separated from her pups by someone who took her to get spayed. Without their mother’s warmth, the puppies had become hypothermic. The vet says the mother dog is now in good condition and she and her pups will be cared for at the clinic.