Mia, the house-trained deer that thinks she's a dog

By Birgit Reichert Feb 2, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Ellscheid, Germany - The Ackermann family in Ellscheid in western Germany took in a fawn eight months and have successfully raised it to a full grown deer called Mia. Anita Ackermann fed it bottle milk and the family's two dogs even took on the task of looking after Mia. 'Our Labrador Josie immediately started caring for Mia,' she says. Collie Luna accepted Mia 'as if she were an aunt.' The result: 'Mia thinks she's a dog,' says Ackermann.

Mia has found a place in the Ackermann household. She has a blanket between the two dogs' sleeping baskets. 'Mia is a member of the family,' says Ackerman who is a nurse by profession and likes to go hunting in her spare time. A forester brought Mia as a fawn to the Ackermann's in May last year after a car hit her mother. She spent her first few months with the Ackermann's sleeping in a washing basket.

Today, Mia likes to walk around the house with the two dogs. She has a feeding bowl in the kitchen, and when she has the call of nature, she stands in front of the house door until she's let outside. 'The only thing she can't do is bark,' laughs Ackermann. She once discovered Mia in the house cellar with her head inside a bag of dried dog food. 'She was chewing happily away, enjoying herself,' she says. 'If she ever starts to growl at the postman, I'll begin to get worried.'

Normally the doe eats grass, grain and any other food she finds when walking around the house and the adjoining organic farm where there are acorns, leaves and berries to be had. Sometimes Mia spends hours outside. 'But she always comes back,' says 'deer father' Ernst Ackermann. It seems Mia is very fond of the Ackermann household. It might have been a different case if she had been brought up in a cage. 'In that case she probably would have run away if the gate had been left open.'

Although the Ackermanns are all hunters Mia does not appear to be bothered by that. 'She doesn't mind whether I've got a rifle or an umbrella in the hallway,' says Anita Ackermann who has shot three deer herself. And the office where there are hunting trophies depicting deer does not bother her. She's even quite happy when other hunters turn up at the house with their dogs. After all, Mia has 'special status' in the house, says Anita Ackermann. Nobody would shoot Mia as all of the local hunters know she wears an orange reflective band around her neck.

Mia has broken nothing since arriving in the house. She doesn't climb over things, doesn't knock things over and she's very clean. 'She's extremely easy to look after.'

So, is she the perfect house pet? 'No, she's not,' says Ackermann. A deer is a wild animal that belongs in a forest. Mia's case was an emergency and she would have died if humans had not taken care of her. 'You should not be thinking about getting a fawn as a pet to have at home.'