A pooch in Burlington, Iowa, is taking care of nine kittens that lost their own mother.

"She does everything momma cat would do," said Angie Beard, a worker at the Des Moines County Humane Society. "She's excellent."

Lilly Lou, as shelter workers call her, is nursing nine kittens, the results of three litters that all lost their mothers, according to WQAD-TV in Moline, Ill.

Beard initially gave Lilly two kittens, hoping she would take to them while the rest were bottle fed.

Shelter workers were hopeful that Lilly would accept more kittens as their chances for survival being bottle fed weren't very high.

Lilly, who recently had six puppies of her own and is expecting another litter, immediately took to her new charges, which Beard and other shelter workers have dubbed "pittens," or puppy kittens.

"If one of them crawls out of bed, she'll follow it around the room, toss it up in the air and then take it back to the bed," Beard said. "She cleans them just like her own puppies; she feeds them just like her own puppies."

The kittens are three and four weeks old now and will stay with Lilly until they are six weeks old.