The Ambivalent Bond with a Ball of Fur Essay

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In the article “The Ambivalent Bond with a Ball of Fur” by Natalie Angier, she states the paradoxical relationship between humans and our pets. Though we may have relations with parents, lovers and friends, which at times can come to be complex but it’s enough to understand one another. With us and our pets, we also have that special relationship and bond, but even with our pets we run into the matter of them being a different species, but with that being said Angier mentions that pets seem to be “simple and innocent,” she also says that at times we may forget that they are another species and label our pets as “best friends” or even a “member of the family.” Having a pet was said to be an equivalent to having a surrogate child, our pet offers that emotional and physical comfort that we all seek out knowing that we can always get that special attention from our pets, where with humans we may not always have that pleasure of receiving that attention when it’s convenient for us. Angier comes to realize that as much attention as we give our pets, when the time comes to when they pass on we then come to see only then that without that companionship from our pets we then feel a state of loneliness. She mentions this in the article when her cat Cleo dies and talks about certain activities she remembered doing with her cat, such as when he would jump in the pile of clean laundry and when he would dash inside to roll around in the loose wads of insulation in the attic. One example of why people bond with pets was in the first paragraph about Angier and her cat Cleo. Angier also mentions about Dr. Pepperberg and her parrot Alex, Alex turned out to have more potential than the other pets and also convince the public eye that he was not just an ordinary parrot. Alex’s ability to talk and describe things was what separated him from all the other pets along with his genuine

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