When did the Buddha get surrounded by lots of animals?
An image (a painting) of the Buddha with many animals is the subject of the children's story, The Cat Who Went to Heaven.

Some of the animal vignettes in this are each taken from a traditional story (e.g. Buddha and swan, and e.g. Buddha and Banyan deer).

The painting is of the following scene:


  When he was eighty, he knew he was near
  death, and he saw the skies open and all the Hindu gods of the heavens, and
  of the trees, and the mountains, with his disciples, and the animals of the
  earth came to bid him farewell.


I don't know whether that scene is from any traditional story (I don't think it's a Pali sutta).