son, Michael, fell unconscious in the
hallway. Cathy and her husband, Eric,
were slowly sinking into unconsciousness as well. Winnie had been breathing the clear night air, so she was the
only living creature in the house that
could tell something was wrong. But
rather than escaping through the open
window, Winnie raced over to Cathy.
“Winnie was pulling my hair and
yowling in my ear,” Cathy recalls of
her normally mellow cat’s unusual
behavior. “I would wake up and pass
out again. Every time I passed out,
Winnie would wake me up again.”
Cathy managed to rouse herself
and dial 911, but the gas knocked her
out before she could tell the operator
what was going on. The dispatcher
sent out a state trooper and sheriff’s
deputies, who dragged the family onto
the porch and into the fresh air. A fire-
fighter found Winnie in a closet.
Everyone recovered after many
hours in the hospital, where the dire
nature of their situation became clear.
“The deputy sheriff told me that if
Winnie had waited five more minutes
to get us up, we’d all be dead,” Cathy
Keesling says. “I’m so proud of her.
“I guess because we saved her life,
she saved ours.”
IN 1987 THE NATIONAL Institutes of
Health (NIH) launched a workshop
on the health benefits of owning pets:
at that time there were a few scientific papers on the subject, including
a study that proved pets boosted survival rates for coronary care unit patients. By last year, when the NIH held
a workshop on how pets help people,
new findings had proliferated, though
in many cases they simply validated
what people have known about pets
for centuries. One study showed that
dog ownership promotes regular exercise. Another found that being near
a pet lowers its owner’s blood pressure
(an effect that family members, no
matter how beloved, can’t match).
More surprising were new data on
the key role of chemistry in the relationship. When a person interacts with a
Charley
WEST HIGHLAND WHITE TERRIER, 4
“ It was a miracle” that
Charley found Roy
Monie, who had fallen
off a ladder. “God put us
there for a reason.”
—Frances Gippert
(Charley shown with Monie)
pet, the central nervous system releases
several hormones that cause feelings of
pleasure—and one hormone in particu-
lar, oxytocin, appears to play a major
role in reinforcing the bond. Produced
by new mammalian mothers to en-
courage bonding with their offspring,
oxytocin creates a sense of warmth,
nurturing, and calm. In 2002 two South
African researchers measured oxytocin
levels not only in humans petting dogs
but in the dogs themselves: the dogs ex-
perienced the same chemical releases
and calming effects as did the humans.
Researchers are still unclear about the
exact role of these chemicals, though
when two different species can pro-
duce feelings of peace, closeness, and
contentment in each other, it’s clearly
an intriguing find.
