Mutual Rescue: Why Now Is the Best Time to Adopt a Pet

Editor's note: Animals have always been important to dog and cat lovers. But now when we're all struggling with cabin fever on an apocalyptic scale, they are downright indispensable. What wonderful company they are, curling up beside us as we re-watch all seven seasons of Madmen or gazing into our eyes with a steadiness that soothes the panic. We recently heard from one reader who has adopted a black-and-white mutt with a Churchillian jaw. "We decided we needed a positive to help us get through however long this is going to be. So we we are giving and receiving unconditional love," she says. 

Indeed, animal shelters are in crisis right now, NPR reports. Many have had to close down, and fearing the arrival of new litters and abandoned animals with no one to adopt them, they are racing to empty kennels before they are forced to resort to euthanasia. This is certainly a good time to take in a shelter animal, and we thought it was also a good time to re-run the following excerpt about how rescue animals improve our lives.