Six-year-old Natalie Renk said cats and lambs are alike because they both like to rub against her. The difference, though, is that a lamb would be harder to train to use a litter box.

Renk recently got to hold a newborn lamb when her kindergarten class from Hawthorne Elementary visited the Sieben Ranch north of Helena.

She was escorted on the field trip by Ashlin Deaton, a C.R. Anderson Middle School eighth-grader participating in the Cub Companion program — one of many programs in the Helena School District that pairs older students with younger ones.

Read more in the Independent Record.