Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Grandin is best known for her memoir, Thinking in Pictures (1995), a text that explains how Grandin’s autism informs her work with animals and gives her a better understanding of how animals think and feel. Animals in Translation takes Thinking in Pictures one step further, providing an in-depth account of animal cognition and emotions. Grandin explains that because she has autism, her brain does not convert information to words. Instead, she thinks “in pictures,” and her brain spends more time interpreting visual cues. She argues that animals process information in a similar manner. Because they lack the capacity for language, they also interpret information visually. Because neurotypical humans and animals “think” so differently from each other, most people have long assumed that animals are less sensitive and less intelligent than humans. Humans, she notes, do not understand the way that animals think and feel. Grandin’s autism makes her detail-oriented and helps her to focus on making keen observations. Because she is more attuned to animal thought and emotion processing, she has been able to observe animals in commercial settings and ascertain which aspects of their care or handling might be more distressing to them than anyone previously realized.

She opens Animals in Translation with a chapter dedicated to the development of her personal relationship with animals, focusing on how her burgeoning awareness of the autistic neurotype has helped her to better connect with animals. She details a series of epiphanies that she had about animal care and welfare, noting that her ability to visualize what a particular animal sees led her to develop an understanding of animal behavior that contradicted key aspects of behavioral science. She then explains how animals perceive the world, using her own powers of visualization to describe what animals see. One of her most critical discoveries was that cattle are more sensitive to flooring materials than was previously believed. The cattle notice changes in the flooring used in their enclosures and transport vehicles and have developed elevated stress responses to many kinds of common flooring.

Grandin then explores the social-emotional world of animals, introducing introduces the idea of core emotional systems. In this text, she distinguishes between the four “primal emotions” of rage, the prey drive, fear, and curiosity/interest, as well as four lesser-understood systems common to animals: sexual attraction, separation distress, social attachment, and play. She argues these kinds of emotional response systems drive all animal behavior, and that this knowledge can be used to improve animal welfare conditions. She also notes animals’ capacity to feel anxiety, distress, and emotional upheaval. She explores various changes that can be made in commercial settings to decrease distress, such as the use of the “squeeze machines” that she developed to apply a calming pressure. She notes animals’ need to seek, play, and be curious, arguing that even on farms and in factories, animals’ environments can be enriched in ways that increase the quality of their lives. She believes that farmed animals and humans should have a symbiotic relationship, and that in exchange for the use of their bodies for meat, humans should provide cattle, pigs, poultry, and other farm animals with the best lives possible.

Grandin also explores animal aggression, noting the myriad ways in which hyper-stressful living and slaughter conditions produce and increase animal aggression. She argues that aggression is also an animal welfare issue and can be addressed though a more nuanced understanding of animals’ complex social-emotional worlds. Even in commercial settings, animals can be grouped in ways that more closely resemble the social structures they have developed in the wild. Much of the criticism that she levels at the commercialized agricultural industry in Animals Make Us Human is rooted in the information she presents about animal suffering in Animals in Translation. For example, Grandin argues that the industry ignores animal suffering out of the erroneous belief that altering welfare standards will necessarily decrease profits.

In her final chapters, Grandin explains animal cognition and explores often-overlooked animal talents. Expanding upon her account of visualization, she points out key similarities between people with autism and animals. She explores different animal species, noting the cognitive variation that exists across the natural world. Her discussion of animal talents also illuminates the rich variation among species; for example, dogs have a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, and macaws can invent new words to describe their surroundings. As in the rest of the text, Grandin ultimately demonstrates that animals are far more complex than people once realized, and she advocates for the development of a kinder and more thoughtful relationship between animals and humans.