I have to share this extract on the connection between humans and animals.
It's from How to be Your Dog's Best Friend - the best dog training book you can buy, according to a friend of Fluffy Bear's. It's written by The Monks of Skete, a monestary in upper New York State who have been training and breeding German Shepards for decades.
In Egypt, there is a devoutly religious tribe called the Nuer. The Nuer live near the Nile River and raise cattle for their livelihood. But their cows are more to them than just a source of income. Barns, cow halters, and electric fences are foreign to the Nuer. Instead, they integrate their cows into the total fabric of their daily lives, utilizing them in work, letting them mill around, sleeping near them, and meticulously grooming and bathing them. Each cow has a name and a personal history, known by all the tribe. Daily life is characterized by incessant conversation (or so it seems to an outsider) about the cattle. Each tribesman has plenty of stories to tell about his cows, cows he has owned, or cows he hopes to own. The Nuer are always looking for the "ideal cow". Cows even attend some religious services, and Nuer ritual is full of references to you know what. Nuer religion has been studied extensively and is considered by anthropologists an archetypal primitive religion. The Nuer are, on the whole, physically healthy and pscychologically wholesome. They live totally integrated with creatures that are on another level of existence.