User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
An interesting and thought-provoking book by an autistic scientist, a Ph.D. in animal science, who is a professor at Colorado State University. This book was written in collaboration with another scientist, also a Ph.D., who specializes in neuropsychiatry and who is also the mother of two of three sons with autism.
It is clear throughout the book that autism has provided Grandin with extraordinary insights into animals and (perhaps) extraordinary patience with animals. In one example, she takes a week to condition a group of prey animals (llamas or gazelles) in a zoo to the presence of a new door or a differently colored sign. I couldn't wait 24 hrs to introduce a new pd to my resident pet pds.
In another example, Grandin easily identifies why cattle are suddenly spooked by an entryway by slowly following the path of the cattle through the entryway and absorbing perceptions so detailed they would be almost imperceptible to the average person.
It appears her autism provides her with the ability to tap into different modes of perception, nonspecific (human) and specific (autistic and animal). Her treatment with modern antidepressants has provided her with the ability to cope with an overwhelming anxiety disorder and the opportunity to achieve, among other things, a Ph.D.
She works primarily with feed animals--consulting with private corporations on humane policies and practices for raising and killing animals for food. She also consults with zoos on habitat, behavior, and quality of life issues. She has a philosophical acceptance of certain practices, i.e., hunting, as a byproduct of the ability to maintain wild populations.
The subtitle of the book is "Creating the best life for animals," which was of particular interest to me as a pet owner of domestic mice (two "colonies" of many mice) and six wild prairie dogs (pds).
Grandin actually mentions research on pds that attempts to decode their fairly sophisticated language. They have specific calls for different predators and the complexity to communicate the location and immediacy of threats.
I acknowledge my emotional and often irrational sentiments regarding animals and wild animal populations. I grew up with Bambi. I care about polar bears. I acknowledge I am also a carnivore. I love rare steaks. I can accept black-footed ferrets eating pds, but I don't want to see them in action. I respect hunters. But I also think people who shoot pds for sport using rifles with long-range telescopic sights are not hunters, per se.
I would like to read more of Grandin's work.
Rating: really liked it
The many fantastic reviews of this book seem to be based more on the person (autistic woman overcoming her disability to achieve a successful career advising the livestock industry on how to treat animals on the way to be nicer to their animals) than the book itself, which is awkwardly written and not that great of a read, to be honest. In Britain it's called "Making Animals Happy," and that would be a more appropriate title than "Animals Make Us Human," which is an interesting thesis but one that Grandin sheds no light on throughout the course of her book. Grandin ends the book by talking about why she never became a vegetarian and instead advised the industry: she met some cattle farmers in the '70s who were very dedicated to their animals, and she thought that they could all be that way. She's since learned differently, especially in the case of chickens, but doesn't address why she didn't become a vegetarian later when she found this all out.... perhaps because she is only well-known because she works for the livestock companies? Anyway, Temple Grandin is like the Barack Obama of animal rights: she makes people feel like "change" is happening and like she really is on the animals' side, when she's clearly not (she designed a better fence to lead cattle to slaughter, which most slaughterhouses now use-- she cried when she first saw the cows going to their death in it but then was able to change her mind that this was a good thing). The same way that people feel good supporting Obama because of his background or characteristics, Grandin makes people feel good that anyone can overcome a disability and that McDonald's really, really cares about the animals.
Rating: really liked it
Animals deserve the best life, and Temple Grandin's interesting take on our relationship with animals is always a pleasure to read. Particularly of interest was the way she pursued her thesis that animals make us human. This 21st century mental model of identifying -- and revising -- humans' long-standing problematic dominion over the rest of the animal kingdom was very enlightening.
Rating: really liked it
This author has studied animals for many years and worked with humans to make their lives less fearful and more humane. She herself is autistic, so that may give her more insight. She works from "Blue Ribbon Emotions" felt by all animals in some degree. They are : Seeking, Fear, Panic and Rage, Care and Play. This is from research by Dr. Panksepp, not her own. The book is well researched and well documented with many notes and references.
I was afraid at first animal cruelty and abuse may be the main focus, but there is more than that. Still, I think someone interested in animal husbandry or that works with animals would get more from the book than a lay person. However, some myths on the role of dominance were interestingly explored. I did fine with the chapters on horses and dogs and cats, but for some reason had a hard time with the pigs and chickens. Their confinements are openly cruel.
Again, if you are in a career or contemplating study of animals, this would be a great book to read.
Rating: really liked it
3.5/5stars
used for my postcolonialism essay on vegetarianism and the treatment of animals
Rating: really liked it
I love that the focus of this book is about how to make animals in captivity (pets, zoo animals, livestock, etc.) happy. It's so hard to know what it means for an animal to be happy and Temple Grandin uses careful analysis and science to help unravel the mystery.
Knowing that animals need the freedom to express normal behavior and freedom from fear and distress to be happy, Grandin begins to define these things in layman's terms.
I mostly focused on the chapter about cats, because, um, you know.
The best insight that she described is something called SEEKING behavior. Animals (and humans) are happy when they are pursuing a goal, such as food or shelter. When providing hamsters with a cage with pre-built tunnels but no place to dig, they are unhappy because it is their instinct to build them. So you can give them tunnels, but they still want to dig the tunnels themselves. Very similar to "Life's a journey, not a destination." Animals need the journey to be happy.
There's also some great fodder in here for the cats versus dogs debate. Grandin makes a clear case that neither is better or worse, just different.
Favorite Quotes/Facts/Sections:
All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.
[C]ats are
not solitary, self-sufficient loners the way a lot of people think. Cats have social needs...[C]ats and humans had a
mutualistic relationship instead of the more
symbiotic relationship humans and dogs had during domestication...With people and cats, it was more of a relationship of convenience. Cats killed mice and rats, and humans provided lots of mice and rats to kill...
Cats seem autistic because they don't come across as being sociable or eager to please like dogs, and also because their faces are kind of blank.
Cats knead people with their paws to leave their scent.
All animals intensely dislike slippery or unsure footing. Any unstable flooring will frighten an animal.
Cats are hard to read" section (Beginning on p72)
Preventing Fear at the Vet's Office (p78-79)
Elimination Disorders (p80-81)
Rating: really liked it
Read for my in-person book club.
I'm usually pretty wary of books like this, the kind with animals on the cover. Which is really sort of funny since I'm such a whore for animals in real life. But this is the book that was decided upon for my in-person book club, and since I missed the previous two books I figured I should suck it up and read this, especially considering it was my boyfriend's recommendation.
Temple Grandin is an animal scientist with a "twist" as I like to say. Her personal experience with having autism allowed her to be able to really enter the minds of animals and see life through their minds and eyes. This book (from what it sounds like, her other books as well) discusses how to make the lives of animals better. She starts with domestic animals as pets (dogs, cats) before moving on to farm animals (horses, cows, pigs, chickens) and finishing with wildlife and zoos. In all environments animals' lives can be improved upon. She focuses mostly on the emotions of animals and how to bring out the best through SEEKING and PLAY, and how to bring out the worst through RAGE, FEAR, and PANIC.
As an animal lover myself I found that I didn't find I was learning anything new, per se. Animals do have emotions and little changes in their lives can be dramatic and/or traumatic if not handled carefully. Her final chapter about zoo-life was the most interesting to me since I have long had a love-hate relationship with zoos. The Pittsburgh zoo is pretty cool in my opinion (and they have a deer habitat!!) and we try to go at least once each summer. I always enjoy the time we spend there but do find myself feeling sad at the same time. Are the animals there getting the right amount of SEEKING and PLAY that they need to maintain a healthy lifestyle? I can think of a few situations there where things could be improved now that I've read Grandin's suggestions. I'd like for her to come to Pittsburgh and visit the zoo and aquarium to see what she thinks. Along the same lines, I'd also like to know her opinions on sea life as well. Fishies and penguins and manta rays are bad ass too. I'd be interested to hear her opinion of them as animals as well.
I'm also excited to see what people think of this in our book club. This is the first book that has been chosen that was not some hardcore philosophical or sociological study, so the discussion should be pretty interesting.
Rating: really liked it
It started out very good, and then developed into a book of random information about animals. I love animals and I love information about them, but that was not expected from this book. The title is misleading. I didn't even finish it actually, because it was repetitive and her random flow if info was agitating me.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars.
Temple Grandin is autistic and has a Ph.D. in animal science. She works to made conditions for animals better – on ranches and farms, in slaughterhouses and plants, in zoos, etc. In this book, she has an introductory chapter talking about animal emotions, then individual chapters on different animals: dogs, cats, cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and, more generally, wildlife and zoos. She explains how to make animals lives better. With all her experience and training, she can give lots of good examples to explain what she means.
I think Temple Grandin has an amazing insight into animals and their behaviour because of her autism (and she talked a lot about the link between animals and autistic people in “Animals in Translation”). She is a good middle of the road voice for animals – she’s not an extreme activist, but she is working hard to make sure animals are treated well and don’t suffer. Even the animals I am not all that familiar with, I found very interesting to read about in this book. The way she describes things is very matter-of-fact, and it is horrifying the way some animals are treated, but there was only one time I was almost in tears, in the chicken chapter. Even she was horrified, despite all she’s seen, with the conditions in the chicken plant she described.
If you are at all interested in animals and/or animal behaviour (and/or work with animals in any way), I
highly recommend this book.
Rating: really liked it
In this book, Grandin offers up the latest research into animal behavior, giving advice on home to make pets happier and less troubled.
So, there I am, reading the section on cats in my bed, waving the cat-fishing pole about, and Mao takes some sort of crazy course-correcting jump and scratches my nose and chin. This morning I look as if I attended Heidelberg. And I didn't make the cat happy, either, because he didn't like the smell of the antibiotic ointment or the band-aids.
It's a good book.
***
Happily, I managed to conclude my reading without anymore disfiguring incidents. I worry that the kids are more traumatized than I'll realize until I pay their therapists' bills, but both seemed in fine playing-with-cats form last night.
Good book. I think Grandin takes a very clear-eyed view of how humans interact with animals, ie., we feel like we deserve something from them, whether it's affection, or meat, or tourist dollars. I laugh at the Ducks Unlimited people saving wetlands so they can slog through and shoot ducks, but hey, they're saving more ducks than they're killing. Highly recommended to anyone who interacts with animals, at home or at work. there's a lot of absorb.
Rating: really liked it
This book is excellent and should be read by anyone who works with animals! Or by those who just love them. Really interesting. I liked the suggestions for handling cats in veterinary situations. Good book!
Rating: really liked it
Ah, it has been a while since I read Grandin's other books,
Animals in Translation and
Thinking in Pictures. In that time I have also read a lot of other animal behavior books and books on factory farming, so most of the info within this book was not new to me. For that reason, I personally found it a little dull.
Another reviewer said that an alternate title in the UK is "Making Animals Happy," and that is a far more accurate title than "Animals Make Us Human." The latter is an intriguing statement but is not explained in the book at all.
Although it starts out neatly enough, the information presented starts to get random and disorganized. While reading a chapter that is supposed to be about a certain type of animal you find yourself suddenly reading about management practices in the food-animal industry or dissemination of scientific findings. These topics are interesting enough, they just are tossed in the book kind of carelessly.
Grandin makes good points about the importance of good fieldwork and the need to learn how to satisfy animals' core ("blue ribbon") emotions. Some of the information on animal behavior is good, although I think her other books present it much better.
Once the book moved from pets (dogs, cats, horses) to animals used in the food industry, it seemed like there was a lot less information on the animals' behavior and a lot more on the workings of factory farms: their horrors, a brief history of changes that have taken place, and a bit about what Grandin has done to try and improve animal welfare there. I do appreciate her work to make factory farms less horrific for animals (cattle mostly) but if that's not what you want to read about, perhaps give this one a pass.
Rating: really liked it
To really appreciate this book, you need to know something about the author, Temple Grandin. She has autism, she has a PhD, she has been able to make many discoveries about animal behavior, and she has been able to design many humane efficiencies in animal industries. She is something of a systems engineer for anything to do with animals.
If you have never seen the movie "Temple Grandin", take a look at this preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnI_Y8...
You can find the movie at the Henrico Public Library.
In this book Temple Grandin teaches us about animals and why they behave the way they do. Some of it seems so common sense after she explains her reasoning, but I would have never have thought of it on my own.
Some quotes I like from the book:
“The big companies are like steel and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.”
“I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions rights, we will have fewer problem behaviors... All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.”
Rating: really liked it
Like the other books by Temple Grandin, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals was interesting and accessible. I enjoyed reading about the gradual evolution of attitudes of large-scale animal raising operations towards the cattle, pigs, and chickens that were being raised for market. Originally, most farmers/ranchers operated under the concept that animals were non-sentient dumb beasts that didn't need to be treated humanely, whose welfare wasn't considered at all. With Grandin's guidance, along with others, corporations such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's have caused a major shift in how animals are treated at the growing, breeding, and slaughtering facilities with whom these corporations buy their meat, etc.
Additionally, the reader learns that Grandin posits that all animals have a standard set of emotions that are activated depending on the situation in which an animal finds itself. She looks at animals both in the wild as well as those at large agriculture facilities. She makes a lot of sense and backs up much of what she says with studies and observations by others.
What I found off-putting in this book is Grandin's more colloquial and casual style of writing. While there is still plenty of science involved, which is a good thing, Grandin's manner of conveying the science verges on the unscientific. Still I was engrossed while reading it and would recommend it to those with an interest in animal welfare, large agricultural facilities, and an anecdotal look at these areas.
Rating: really liked it
Temple Grandin writes about the four emotions of animals - fear, panic, rage, and seeking. It was like she read my diary! (just kidding)
There's really only one positive emotion for animals - seeking, and that's the one you want to work with. There are a couple of chapters on domestic animals - cats and dogs, and others on farm animals - chickens, pigs, cows, and horses, another on birds. The farm animal chapters are somewhat depressing in the sense of how the food industry has treated them, and that might put you off your feed. Grandin has done a lot of work to improve the situation of cows and chickens. (She's a national treasure.)
I was happy to read that we're doing all the right things with our cats.
The section about wildlife blew my mind. Here's an excerpt:
"Jane Goodall eventually did get a PhD in ethology, but not until after she made two major discoveries about chimpanzees: She discovered that they ate meat and used tools, at a time when scientists believed that the fundamental distinction between humans and animals was that humans used tools and animals didn't. When Jane Goodall reported that she had seen chimpanzees using twigs to fish for termites in termite nests, Dr. Leakey sent her a cable that said, 'Now we must redefine "tool," redefine "man" or accept chimpanzees as humans.'"
I'd never considered that the category of human might contain another living species. Amazing.
Temple Grandin is autistic and seeing the world through a perspective so wildly different from my own was a gift.
