Sweet Pepper the Staffordshire terrier has saved the life of a tiny bird by keeping her owner’s cats away and guarding it on her dog bed.

Pepper found the baby sparrow, who was still too young to fly, after it fell out of its nest.

She then carried the bird into the house, and was eventually found by owner Elisha Jamieson keeping the family’s two pet cats away from the helpless chick.

Now, thanks to Pepper, seven, the bird is being cared for at an animal sanctuary.

Elisha, 21, said: ‘Pepper’s always been very motherly, and she went out of her way to help this chick, carrying it in the house and making sure our cats didn’t get their claws on it.

‘The vet told us the bird would almost have certainly died if it hadn’t been for Pepper. She’s a little star.’

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Customer services agent Elisha, who lives in Newcastle, took a video which shows Pepper crouching over the chick before it rolls between her paws.

Elisha said: ‘I went looking for Pepper because she’s usually sprawled out in the living room.

‘I found her on her bed in the kitchen with the baby sparrow beside her.

‘There’s a nest at the top of the house. The chick must have fallen out of there and Pepper’s brought it in to stop the cats getting it.

‘She goes crazy whenever the cats bring in a dead bird.

‘She’ll bark at them until they drop it, then stands guard over the body.’

After she found the chick, Elisha took it outside and watched over it in the hope the parents would find it and return it to the nest.

‘It sat there tweeting but didn’t move, so in the end we took it to the local vet,’ she said.

‘They said they’d never seen a chick appear so calm, and said that was down to Pepper looking after it.

‘They told us it was very dehydrated and that Pepper saved its life.

‘They rang the RSPCA, who took it to a sanctuary to be looked after.’

Elisha describes lovely Pepper is a ‘big softie’, despite the reputation Staffies have.

‘When the cats had kittens, she’d roll on her back and let them crawl all over her tummy as though they were suckling for milk,’ said Elisha, who also owns Staffy Otis, five.

‘She can be like a big baby herself, snuggling under the quilt on my bed with her head on the pillow.’

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