Freeport, ME — Man’s best friend has a different meaning for a little girl and her pet.
You’ll find dozens of pet toys in 5-year-old Kylie Brown’s room.
You’ll also find clues to her real-life pet who can’t always come inside to play.
Reporter: “How did Snowflake get his name?”
Kylie: “Um, when he was like zero year’s old I named him.”
Kylie’s mom, Ashley Brown, says she’s never seen an animal love somebody back like Snowflake loves Kylie. “It was kind of on a whim that we brought him home. I thought ‘it’s a farm animal, it lives outside, maybe get some eggs from it’ I don’t know! I was not expecting this at all.”
Snowflake the duck follows Kylie everywhere.
Her mom says it started on day one. “We brought him home, this little yellow furball is squawking in a box, and Kylie walked over to the box and leaned in, and he was quiet. They’ve been inseparable ever since. Everywhere she went he was quiet. And if she went missing, he would squawk and panic.”
Over the past six months, Kylie and Snowflake have played at the beach.
On Halloween, he rounded out their “Frozen” costumes. Snowflake dressed as “Olaf” the snowman.
“They are best friends, but in his eyes, she’s mama. She’s mama duck,” says Brown.
Brown says Kylie cares for Snowflake like a child. He waits for her at the bus stop to get home from school. And she makes sure he gets in his nap in the afternoon.
“I’ve seen her grow up,” says Brown. “She’s become very responsible. She takes very good care of him.”
Kylie’s mom doesn’t know what bonded her daughter and duck that first day. But whatever it is, it’s taught them love comes in all shapes, sizes… and species.
“He’s family. He’s definitely family.”
