Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

“Emotions come first. You have to go back to the brain to understand animal welfare.”

Many animal welfare practices were traditionally behavior-focused. Particular behaviors were isolated, after which researchers attempted to modify them. Grandin challenges this approach by arguing that emotions are the true drivers of animal behavior. It therefore follows that, in order to modify a particular behavior, the animal’s emotional state must be properly understood and addressed. For example, if anxiety causes gerbils to dig incessantly, then their anxiety must be ameliorated; merely altering the animal’s environment to reduce digging will not help.

“Animals and humans feel fear when their survival is threatened in any way.”

Fear is one of the core emotional systems that drives both human and animal behavior. Understanding an animal’s response to fear can help humans to provide that animal with a better, happier life. If a dog is afraid of strangers, they can be introduced to new people slowly and can be provided with positive reinforcement whenever they meet a new person.

“Dogs are very different from a lot of other animals we work with because they are hyper-social and hypersensitive to everything we do.”

Dogs have evolved to coexist with humans and as such, they are unique in the animal world. They are capable of reading human emotions and assessing human emotional states. They are happy when their humans are happy and need time with their human each day in order to be happy themselves. They can be trained to a greater degree than other animals and can happily live alongside humans if they are given the right enrichment and a proper environment.

“In the wild wolves don’t live in wolf packs, and they don’t have an alpha male who fights the other wolves to maintain his dominance.”

The misguided notion that wolves form hierarchical packs with rigid dominance structures led to the belief that dogs also mirror this behavior. As a result, many people erroneously concluded that dogs in human households must be similarly dominated. This belief was based on research that has since been debunked. Scientists now understand that wolves naturally live in small family groups and that dogs also view their households as families rather than as a hierarchical pack.

“Dogs need parents, not pack leaders.”

Because dogs evolved from wolves and view their households as family units rather than packs, researchers now advocate for gentler training methods. They argue that dogs’ well-being should take center stage; dog owners should try to meet their dogs’ needs rather than dominating them. The author’s calm, direct tone is designed to counter common misconceptions, and she notes the importance of supporting dogs’ seeking behaviors through walks and play. When dogs’ needs are met, they do not require the dominance-based training that used to be popular.

“Today, a housecat is a lot closer to a wild cat than a dog is to a wolf.”

By creating this comparison, Grandin emphasizes the fact that cats were not domesticated in the same way that dogs were. Because cats developed mutualistic rather than symbiotic relationships with humans, they cannot be trained using social approval methods. They are not as attuned to human emotions and cues because their species has never relied solely upon humans for survival. For cats, the seeking system is activated by play that simulates hunting. Because cats are closer to their wild ancestors, their “play” can look violent.

“Cats need friends and companions to satisfy their social instincts.”

In a sharp contrast to the advice about cats’ origins and temperament, the author also stresses information that refutes the common misconception that cats are cold, aloof, and unemotional. By noting that cats do still have social needs, Grandin advocates for a more compassionate approach to handling felines. For example, she states that cats are subject to panic when left completely alone, and she hopes that people will use her knowledge about core emotional systems to create better conditions for their cats.

“To meet a cat’s intellectual needs, you have to turn on the seeking system. Cat toys and clickers are the best ways we have to do that for a cat.”

Seeking is one of the least understood but most important core emotional systems. Many animal owners are familiar with the need for play and have a cursory understanding of fear, but seeking is a complex system that many people do not consider when thinking about animal welfare. Cats, as hunters, have an extremely high need to seek. Seeking, which house cats pursue through play, plays a critical role in their well-being.

“A horse is an animal that survives in the wild by fleeing and kicking at predators that are attacking it. A horse is all about flight, and fear is the dominant emotion.”

This passage illustrates Grandin’s pragmatic approach to the fundamentals of animal behavior, and she clearly begins her discussion by placing the information in the context of a horse’s perspective. As she frequently reiterates, all animal behavior is driven by the core emotional systems, but each animal experiences those core emotional systems in a different way. Animals that are predatory have greater seeking drives, and prey animals like horses rely more on fear. Fear alerts them to the presence of danger and can keep them safe from predation.

“In any habituation program, you have to expose the horse to any scary thing he’s likely to see.”

Throughout the text, Grandin provides an accessible primer to many of the basic concepts governing animal training and the study of animal behavior. Habituation is the gradual introduction of triggers in order to expose a horse slowly to things they are afraid of. Slow exposure allows the horse to adjust to triggers and to learn that they have nothing to fear from them. Understanding a horse’s fear system is critical to developing a proper habituation program and is another way in which neuroscience can inform human-animal interactions.

“Giving a horse a good social life is important for training and riding too.

Horses that lack companionship can develop increased fear, rage, and panic. The author urges horse handlers to be mindful of the way that horses process emotion in training, and she also stresses the importance of creating housing conditions that do not give rise to negative behaviors. In short, horses should not spend too much time alone in stalls. Understanding horses’ social needs helps the handler to maintain high animal welfare standards.

“The fact that many farm animals aren’t tame means that fear is usually a more important welfare issue for them than companion animals, because farm animals are always a little nervous around humans.”

The author has noted how important the seeking system is for dogs and cats, but she deliberately reframes the discussion to emphasize that farm animals are more strongly governed by fear; it therefore follows that managing this emotion is crucial for their welfare. Cows, for example, are not tame in the way that companion animals are because they have not shed their natural fear of humans. Understanding how fear operates in cows can help handlers to create better conditions that allow the cows to live free from stress and anxiety.

“Yelling is frightening partly because it’s a socially learned fear and partly because it’s a high-intensity stimulus. Cattle like quiet people and quiet handling.”

Understanding the way that cattle’s fear system operates can help handlers to treat them better. Cattle are fearful, sensitive creatures that can become terrified even by raised voices. The author has observed physical abuse of cattle during her work, but she has also come to realize that handlers who yell at cattle do severe emotional damage to the animals.

“In cattle the major welfare issue involving the panic system is the abrupt weaning of calves, which is extremely traumatic and should never be done.”

The author actively promotes the use of research in commercial animal enterprises. Many common practices in the cattle industry are deeply stressful to cows, and the author hopes that a greater emphasis upon neuroscience can change that. Panic is one of the core emotional systems that influences animal behavior, and here she notes that industry-wide weaning practices actually induce panic in animals. She provides several alternatives to abrupt weaning and notes that the introduction of those practices has led to positive change.

“To be a good stockperson you have to realize that an animal is a conscious being that has feelings.”

The author finds many common stockyard practices deeply disturbing. She notes that she has routinely observed animal abuse and that very few stock workers have any training in animal psychology and do not handle the animals well. She believes that a cognitive behavioral approach is necessary for systemic change. Stockyard workers must first understand that animals, like humans, experience emotional distress. That acknowledgement, she hopes, will lead to more humane treatment for animals.

“Pigs are highly curious animals that have to have something to do with their minds and their snouts, which they stick into everything they can reach. Their seeking emotion is almost hyperactive.”

To prove that the core emotional systems can inform animal farming, Grandin expands on the seeking behavior of pigs, explaining that pigs are highly intelligent animals; when in the wild, pigs spend more than three quarters of their days rooting and exploring their environment. Pigs do not have that opportunity in captivity and become distressed. Providing pigs with mental stimulation and enrichment can help them to live calmer, happier lives.

“Ethologists, veterinarians, and animal scientists need to spend more time transferring the results of their research to the industry.”

The author argues that animal welfare standards should be better grounded in scientific research. Part of the responsibility, however, lies with scientists to share their work with the general public, and this goal is central to Grandin’s own explanatory publications on animal psychology. A great deal of academic research, even in the sciences, is published in journals that are largely inaccessible to outside industries. In order for the agricultural industry to change for the better, communication between animal scientists and industry employees must be improved.

“Chicken welfare is so poor that I can’t talk only about the core emotions in this chapter, I need to talk about chickens’ physical welfare too.”

Once again, the author uses a starkly straightforward style to convey the dire straits of animal welfare in certain industries, and her descriptions of the chicken industry have some of the most egregious animal welfare issues. She theorizes that the suffering to which the birds are subjected happens in large part because workers wrongly assume that chickens lack the capacity for emotional distress, are unintelligent, and are less sensitive to pain than larger stock animals. Thus, Grandin is using her publications to disseminate scientific information in the hopes of transforming industry standards. She hopes that if poultry workers have a better understanding of chickens’ complex social-emotional lives, they will treat the birds with greater care and concern.

“Chickens have several serious welfare problems that come from bad genetics and can only be fixed with good genetics. The biggest problem in many intensively raised animals is pushing the animal’s biology for more and more production.”

In this passage, Grandin addresses The Tension between Animal Ethics and Productivity Here, she points out that selective breeding has increased productivity while decreasing quality of life for chickens. A large part of Grandin’s work as a consultant in various meat industries has been to reverse practices like this one. She ultimately argues that the preservation of heritage breeds is the best way to promote genetic diversity in chickens.

“When a welfare situation deteriorates too slowly for workers and managers to notice, the new bad situation seems normal.”

Grandin has long advocated for systemic change in the meat industry. She believes that workers need to be trained to better understand animals’ emotional response systems and capacity for suffering. She advocates for a “new normal” set of standards that would make better use of scientific research, and her efforts to train industry workers and managers reflect her own ethical stance as she strives to help animals lead better lives.

“Many academic scientists think that unless you use sophisticated mathematics, your study lacks scientific rigor.”

Grandin argues that new mathematical and computer-based methods fail to produce meaningful results because they under-utilize observational data. She laments the switch from observational models and hands-on work to computer modeling. She points out that the work of researchers like Jane Goodall could never have been produced by computer modeling or statistical analysis.

“Good fieldwork is observational science.”

Grandin’s criticism of the increased use of computer modeling in the sciences is a key component of the book’s latter chapters. She argues that in fields related to animals, observation is more important than computer or statistical modeling. She notes the impossibility of truly understanding animals without observing them in their natural habitats and argues that none of the advancements in animal science that have furthered our understanding of animal behavior would have been possible without observation.

“I recommend that zookeepers give their animals lots of opportunities to seek and play.”

In the last chapter, Grandin details the way that the core emotional systems can be used to improve animal welfare in zoos. For large predators in particular, seeking is an important system. Because zoo animals are not typically given wild prey and must be kept in small enclosures, enrichment is key to maintaining their well-being. By using an understanding of the seeking and play systems, zookeepers can provide their animals with toys, auditory stimulation (like recorded birdsong), and other enhancements that mimic life in the wild.