Review: April 2009

Print

Email

Order from Amazon.com

Why do we love our cats and dogs so much? If you think it is just that they are cute, clever, and affectionate, well, that’s only part of the story. And if you think they are fond of us only because we fill their food bowls, rest assured that animals really do love us—truly, madly, and deeply. Meg Daley Olmert, who produces natural history documentaries for TV, has investigated the scientific and historical background of the bond between humans and their domestic animals, finding that it’s as socially complex and as biologically mediated as the love we humans have for each other.

We are, Olmert reminds us, social animals, and as such we naturally seek the company, not only of others of our species, but of all sorts of other animals. E.O. Wilson called this trait biophilia, and though not everyone shares his fascination with ants, we all seem to enjoy watching creatures as they go about their daily business. Zoos, nature films, and TV documentaries all cater to this interest, which Olmert traces back to the adaptive advantage our ancestors gained when they observed wolves and lions to become their pupils in predation, rather than their prey. By copying the strengths and second-guessing the weaknesses of coevolving animals, Stone Age hunters could assure ample meals for their families. Over several million years it was a natural progression from there to bringing the animals into the family: a domesticated wolf could help with the hunting in return for a secure share of the catch and the added protection of living with wily humans.

Interspecies bonds are more than just a marriage of convenience. According to Olmert, they are cemented by a hormonal mediator known as oxytocin. In new mothers, it’s what produces labor contractions and stimulates lactation; released during courting, cuddling, and sex, it promotes intimacy and pair-bonding. In mammals in general, it functions as a sort of “anti-stress” hormone, lowering heart rate, reducing blood pressure, and producing a general feeling of contentment, peacefulness, and attachment. Oxytocin is produced—in both humans and animals—when we touch each other, and also when we are touched. We may not be able to talk with the animals like Dr. Doolittle, but on a chemical level, apparently, we all speak the same language.

Although mediated by a single chemical, the social manifestations of the human-animal bond take many forms. Horse whisperers have discovered a spot on the back of the horse’s neck that seems to stimulate oxytocin-induced feelings of sympathy. Cows and their milkers have been known to go into a mutual meditative state during the milking process. However it is manifest, Olmert believes, the oxytocin boost we get from pets not only makes us love our animal buddies, but can make us “smarter, calmer, friendlier, healthier, even more attractive.” Good pets, as animal lovers have long known, make us good people.