Humans didn't tame animals, animals chose to become tame. Increasingly confrontational, the slogans of animal rights movements state that eating meat is murder, pets are slaves, laboratory animals are prisoners. But new studies on how the first animals came to be domesticated cast a different light on the relationship between humans and animals. Rather that an act of exploitation by man, domestication was a natural process. In this reappraisal of the human-animal bond, the author shows how domestication has proved to be a successful evolutionary strategy, benefiting humans and animals alike.