Seemingly all of a sudden, animal companions are our partners in health! Not just as carcasses to be chipped and chunked, fileted and skewered to fill our gullet, or to be stripped, tanned, and polished to adorn our egos and provide treads. Rather now as seltzers and herbs to soothe man's soul and invigorate his heart and mind. In America and elsewhere the enduring recognition of the "human-animal bond" is flourishing in a new light but one that has flickered for eons.