<p>July 21 issue — Everyone who’s ever owned a pet has at least one story (usually many, actually) of an animal that seems just as emotional as any human. TAKE RUTH OSMENT, who says her two cats, Penny and Jo, feel sorry for her when she cries—running to her and drying her tears with their fur. Or Donna Westlund, whose roommate’s parrot Koko shows all the classic signs of a teenage crush, calling out “Hey, come here,” whenever she tries to leave the room. Then there’s John Van Zante. Recently, he watched Max, a Labrador retriever mix, sit lovingly by a woman in a wheelchair in a convalescent home while she patted his head for several minutes. It wasn’t until the elderly woman wheeled off down the hall that Van Zante realized she had been parked on Max’s tail the entire time. Max hadn’t complained at all. “He was in pain, clearly, but he seemed to know that she had special needs, so he just sat through it,” says Van Zante, communications director for the Helen Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.</p>