“The horse got
depressed, really
hung his head low.
But after Jeremy rode
him, Kid basically
announced, ‘I’m back
in business, baby!’”
—Karen Grindler
(with Jeremy Hardin)
Kid
AMERICAN
QUARTER HORSE, 40
of an explanation for the amazing phenomenon of animal heroism.
Think your
pet’s a hero?
Tell us why in our Most
Heroic Pet contest,
beginning September 24
at
aarpmagazine.org/
petcontest.
Humans have long been fascinated
by the other animals with whom we
share this planet. Our distant ancestors started painting horses and the
fearsome aurochs (which humans
would eventually tame and breed
into the contemporary cow) on cave
walls tens of thousands of years ago.
Animals both wild and domesticated
adorned ancient pottery
and jewelry, and joined our
ancestors in their tombs.
Today animals still en-
chant us, perhaps more so
than at any time in history.
There are roughly twice
as many pets in American
households as there are
children under 18. Forty
years ago Americans owned
about 40 million pet dogs
and cats in a nation of 200
million people; today our
pet population has more
than quadrupled, as the hu-
man population has grown
to 300 million. Sentimental
books such as Dewey: The
Small-Town Library Cat
Who Touched the World and
Marley & Me have become
New York Times bestsellers.
We knit for our dogs and
serve lobster to our cats.
And when our pets become
ill, we’re ever more willing
to spring for veterinary
care. Ailments that used to
be death warrants—cancer, a broken
hip, kidney failure—are now often
successfully treated. “When I first
went into practice [in the late 1980s],
ten was pretty old for a Labrador or
golden retriever,” says Jeff Wells,
D.V.M., the author of All My Patients
Have Tales. “Now I often
see those breeds at 14, 15
years old.”
But even though
we’ve benefited from
the loyalty, intelli-
gence, and labor of
animals for thousands
of years, humans are
only beginning to un-
derstand why we feel
such strong attachments to
specific members of other spe-
cies. Over the past ten years intriguing
studies have started to reveal the evo-
lutionary, social, and biochemical rea-
sons that people and animals are such
fast friends—and offer the rudiments
EARLY SPRING FLOODS in 2007 had
inundated the flat neighborhoods
and farms around the eastern Indiana
house of the Keesling family. Their
home’s basement had taken
on some 30,000 gallons
of water, and a gaso-
line pump had been set
up to empty it. After
the family went to
bed, a crack in the
pump’s venting sys-
tem caused carbon
monoxide to pour into
the home’s heat ducts.
Cathy Keesling had
closed all the windows in the
house, save one on the first floor where
Winnie, the gray-and-black-striped
cat the family had rescued from a barn
years before, was sleeping. When dead-
ly gas filled the house, Cathy’s teenage
“The
deputy
sheriff told
me that
if Winnie
had waited
five more
minutes to
wake us up,
we’d all be
dead.”
—Cathy Keesling
(with son Michael
and husband Eric)
Winnie
DOMESTIC
SHORTHAIR, 16
