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The Human Animal Bond

In: Social Issues

Submitted By kellierenee13
Words 3162
Pages 13
Kellie Hintz
15 May 2010
Writing 1200
The Human-Animal Bond: How animals enrich our lives
The year 2003 started out the same as any other year. It was my second year in the Army and I was just beginning to get used to the demands of military life, when, all of a sudden, my unit got orders to go to Iraq. I felt as if my world had been turned upside down, and I had no idea how I was going to get through the deployment and still keep my sanity. About three months into the deployment, I was taking the trash out after dinner when it happened. As I was about to launch the bag into the trash trailer, I could have sworn I heard a cat meow. I thought, “I must be crazy!” I hadn’t seen a cat since I left the United States, but sure enough when I bent down to look under the trailer, there he was. Staring back at me was a cat that could have passed for my childhood cat. I doubted that he would come to me if I called him, but I decided to give it a try anyway, and to my surprise he came! This was the beginning of a three month relationship. I started calling him Marvin since he reminded me so much of the cat I had when I was young.
For the three months I spent about 30 minutes a day with Marvin. He would usually show up right around dinner time. He always knew where he could find me, and when he did, he would come over and jump into my lap and lay down. He would sit with me for a while and I would pet him and talk to him about my day. Some of the people I worked with would come by and tell me that I was crazy for touching a stray cat in the middle of Iraq. “He might have a disease,” they would say. I didn’t care what they said, Marvin was important to me. There I was in the middle of the desert in Iraq, half a world away from my family and everything familiar to me. For half an hour a day, sometimes more, that little cat allowed me to forget where I was for a while. There

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