"Winnie was pulling my hair and yowling in my ear," Cathy recalls of her normally mellow cat's unusual behavior. But rather than escaping through the open window, Winnie raced over to Cathy. Winnie had been breathing the clear night air, so she was the only living creature in the house that could tell something was wrong. Cathy and her husband, Eric, were slowly sinking into unconsciousness as well. When deadly gas filled the house, Cathy's teenage son, Michael, fell unconscious in the hallway. After the family went to bed, a crack in the pump's venting system caused carbon monoxide to pour into the home's heat ducts.Ĭathy 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. Their home's basement had taken on some 30,000 gallons of water, and a gasoline pump had been set up to empty it. Over the past ten years intriguing studies have started to reveal the evolutionary, social, and biochemical reasons that people and animals are such fast friends-and offer the rudiments of an explanation for the amazing phenomenon of animal heroism.Įarly Spring floods in 2007 had inundated the flat neighborhoods and farms around the eastern Indiana house of the Keesling family. "Now I often see those breeds at 14, 15 years old."īut even though we've benefited from the loyalty, intelligence, and labor of animals for thousands of years, humans are only beginning to understand why we feel such strong attachments to specific members of other species. "When I first went into practice, ten was pretty old for a Labrador or golden retriever," says Jeff Wells, D.V.M., the author of All My Patients Have Tales. Ailments that used to be death warrants-cancer, a broken hip, kidney failure-are now often successfully treated. And when our pets become ill, we're ever more willing to spring for veterinary care. We knit for our dogs and serve lobster to our cats. Sentimental books such as Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World and Marley & Me have become New York Times bestsellers. 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 human population has grown to 300 million. There are roughly twice as many pets in American households as there are children under 18. Today animals still enchant us, perhaps more so than at any time in history. Animals both wild and domesticated adorned ancient pottery and jewelry, and joined our ancestors in their tombs. 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. Humans have long been fascinated by the other animals with whom we share this planet. What explains this powerful human-animal connection? What makes a wounded dog protect his dying partner-and what makes a grieving mother want that faithful canine companion at her son's funeral? I wanted him there at the funeral with me." "After hearing that Lex climbed on top of Dustin as they both bled…Lex and Dustin shared a bond, and now that bond is a blood bond. "The more we talked, the more I wanted Lex to be at Dustin's funeral," she says. "After the Marine Corps representative told us everything that happened," recalls Dustin Lee's mother, Rachel (pictured above with Lex), "my next question was-and I'll always remember it-'What about Lex?' " But Corporal Lee's injuries were too severe he died at a nearby military hospital.Ī few days later, two uniformed Marines arrived at the Lee family home in Quitman, Mississippi, to deliver the news of the corporal's death. And the Marines who rushed to their comrade's side had to peel Lex reluctantly off the young corporal so medics could try to save him. They saw Lex try to revive his master by licking his wounds. Marines on the scene watched as the bleeding Lex climbed on top of Corporal Lee to protect him from further harm. Lex-a German shepherd trained to sniff out hidden explosives-was also injured, his brown and black fur burned, shrapnel lodged in his back and spine. Lee, a 20-year-old Mississippi native, was gravely wounded by the blast. It was March 21, 2007, when the 73-millimeter insurgent-launched rocket exploded inside their base in the Al Anbar province of Iraq, right next to Corporal Dustin Jerome Lee and his canine partner, Lex. The rocket came in fast, maybe 900 feet per second-too fast for anyone to sound the warning siren, and much too fast for all the troops of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force to take cover.
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