A Victorian man made friends with a wild koala covered in burrs, or thorns, after it wandered onto his porch on December 17. Bruce Atkinson, from Apollo Bay, was able to brush the prickles out of the female koala’s fur.

Atkinson told Storyful: “I put a bowl of water out for the koala, but it just knocked it away and started to growl. I was a bit worried, but I popped on some motorcycle gloves and grabbed a brush and it let me comb out the burrs.”

Atkinson told Storyful it took him about 30 minutes to brush out the prickles and that koala stayed around the house for the remainder of the day.

The video shows Atkinson brushing the koala. Credit: Facebook/Bruce Atkinson via Storyful