I’m happy to see Zip here on the farm for many reasons; one is that he offers me yet another chance to study and learn how love between humans and animals is formed, a subject that I’ve been writing about for years.

Zip and Maria are talking love to one another and bonding before my eyes.

The deepening – and sometimes unhealthy –  love between humans and pets like dogs and cats – has rarely been this intense in the history of  human evolution.

Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant Christian philosopher of the 12th century, argued that showing mercy and love to animals is essential to learning to be merciful to one another, a new idea in brutal times.

Sociologists have long pointed out that humans don’t need dogs and cats like they have needed other animals; we can live easily without them. They love and need them more and more.

Our love for them only depends on and grows, even as we seem increasingly disconnected. There’s a lot of meaning in that reality.

In my years of studying dogs and other animals and my interest in the almost epidemic love that so many people now have for them, there are some obvious answers as to why this happens. Animals like dogs and cats have evolved with human beings and learned how to live with them in ways squirrels and raccoons can’t.

More and more people see animals as comparable to human children and love them deeply (the unhealthy part, in my mind).

They are ever-forgiving, and their love for us is unlimited; they make us feel valuable, supported, and loved.

A book by British biologist John Bradshaw has given me some critical answers.

The Animals Among Us: How Pets Make Us Human argues that our fascination with pets is not only because they are helpful, cute, and loving to us or because they help us to live longer.

Instead, he writes, pet-keeping is an intrinsic part of human nature, rooted deeply in human evolution.

(We invite our dogs to sit with us when we visit Zip so they can all get to know and smell one another above.)

Evidence shows that interacting with pets reduces people’s stress, even as our lives become more stressful.

Good interactions like this have a profound biological effect on humans, causing changes in oxytocin and beta-endorphins.

Bradshaw says Those changes are going on in the body of somebody stroking a friendly dog or cat.

In my experience with animals, I have found that love often begins with food, nourishment, clarity, and affection.

My dogs love me partly because I feed them and allow them to live comfortably and safely with full stomachs and protection from predators and harsh weather.

I never ask them to do something I’m not sure they know how to do or understand how to do.

The beginning of this love is how I see Maria talking to Zip, and love is how I see him responding to food, affection, and the treats she offers.

There are other ways to get dogs and cats to love us, but this is the beginning of human interaction with domestic animals.

The other way this love grows is the way Bradshaw describes it in his timely and enlightening book.

We feel good when we touch a dog or rub a cat’s belly or neck. Or when they show their love to us, something most animals have never learned to do.

We feel calm, and we feel the joy of love.

This affection is not easy to find in other human beings, especially in the Internet era, where people increasingly have no actual touching or face-to-face contact with one another.

Whenever I look at the news, I want to hold Zinnia, kiss her on the nose, and let her lick me, tail wagging back and forth. I can almost feel the endorphins flowing that Bradshaw writes about.

In one day, I saw this love grow between Zip and Maria. At first, he hid in the back of the crate when we appeared. We each held out cat treats in our hands and reached out to him to scratch and touch him where he sat.

It was up to him to move; we didn’t force him, or grab him suddenly.

Today, he came quickly to see us when we appeared and let us feed and touch him.

This food touching and patience is the birth of trust and communication. The rest depends on us. We repeat his name, let him smell us through the crate wire, and permit him to hear our voices and know us from a safe distance.

I put a chair next to Zip and sit and talk with him so he can learn to trust me. Maris sits close.

I slip some kibble to him through the side of the crate. Maria can crawl into the box and scratch his ears, which he loves.  He already associates us with good things.

We put worms down near Zip so he can see and get comfortable with our chickens.

We keep our voices down and say his name often.

Each day, we get closer. In a week or so, when we let him out of the crate, he will hopefully know this is home and want to stay near the people who feed him and care for him. Food is essential to this – his life depends on it in most ways.

He can be spared most of the hardships and food issues he has faced as an outdoor cat while keeping his independence and distance when he wishes. We can see that he is a hunter and needs to hunt.

Throughout human history, humans have accepted the reality of animals. They aren’t people; they don’t live as long as we do, andwill often succumb to the dangers of the natural world. Cats are notorious killers.

We understand and accept that possibility.

The animal rights movement argues that animals are just like us and should be treated as humans, with human rights and protection from human beings, generally considered evil or cruel.

Feeling morally superior to other people seems a seminal foundation of the movement, which works hard to separate animals and take them far away from human beings.

I believe in the opposite – the best chance of survival for most species of animals is staying close to people and, when possible, working with them, with some apparent exceptions.

That is the most substantial incentive for most people to keep them alive, feed them, and treat them well, especially as natural animal habitats vanish all over the earth.

It seems Zip, who has never lived indoors, loves to be touched. We touch him several times daily but do not grab at him.

On a more personal level, Maria and I also share the understanding that Zip is an animal, not our child or furbaby.

He will kill when he can and runs the risk of any outdoor animal in America being killed by a predator or, more likely, by a speeding human.

Barn cats are well known for their savvy.

If they live a year, they have learned to avoid roads, cars, and trucks. We’ve had three barn cats here, and none came with 20 years of a road or highway. They learn how to survive, or they perish.

Again, we differ from many in the animal rights movement, who believe barn cats should be rescued and kept in crates for the rest of their lives like dogs in no-kill shelters.

Instead of raising money to get these animals into good and loving homes, they spend a fortune keeping dogs alive without hope of freedom or adoption. It makes no sense to me.

It’s a generalization, but the movement seems to have little or no understanding of what animals are like.

We offer Zip this life because it pleases us and keeps our barn free of rodents; we also get pleasure from giving him the life he was meant to lead.

For us, accepting and respecting the true nature of animals has deepened our love for them and their nature.

Since they are not human children, it is not natural or healthy for them to be treated that way. According to the American Veterinary Association, overeating is one of the leading causes of death for dogs and cats.

The more we feed them our gourmet treats and foods, the shorter their life spans. Barn cats, in particular, thrive on their natural diets of mice and rodents. They live much longer than domestic cats.

Maria and I visit Zip thrice daily to acclimate him to us and our farm. We bring the dogs in to see if him with us so they can get used to the smells each other.

I’m excited to chronicle this journey of love. Maria is the perfect human to watch, and it turns out that Zip is her perfect animal partner. As often happens, I’m in the right place at the right time.