A New York Times best-selling author's compelling portrait of the universal human need for animal companions - from dogs and cats to horses, birds, house rabbits, and even exotica such as lizards and snakes.

In The Animal's Companion, the acclaimed author of Red: A History of the Redhead, Jacky Colliss Harvey, turns her keen eye for cultural investigation and her remarkable storytelling skills to a pet project: the history of animals as our companions in everyday life. It's a history that dates back as far as 26,000 years ago to a cave in France where anthropologists have since discovered evidence of a boy and his dog taking a walk together. From this point forward, Colliss Harvey takes us on a sweeping journey through centuries and across continents to examine how our relationships with our pets have developed but have also stayed very much the same.

Along the way, she shares delightful stories of the most famous, endearing, and sometimes eccentric pet owners throughout history.