Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Jane Goodall is one of the world’s foremost authorities on chimpanzee behavior. She is known for her extensive research on chimpanzees and has published widely, including popular titles such as My Life with Chimpanzees (1988), Reason for Hope (1999), and In the Shadow of Man (1971). Grandin discusses Goodall’s career in order to make a broader point about the importance of accessibility and nontraditional career paths in the sciences. She notes that Goodall had only secretarial training when she used her own savings to visit a friend in Kenya in order to study chimpanzees. She went back for doctoral work in animal behavior only after discovering that chimpanzees “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” (235). 

Goodall’s initial discovery about tool use in chimpanzees was a major contribution to science, and she went on to make many critical discoveries about chimpanzee behavior. Grandin argues that because one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century had a nontraditional academic background, more opportunities must be given to similarly nontraditional, would-be researchers. This idea is especially important to Grandin, whose autism required her to take a nontraditional path. As a person with autism, she thinks in pictures and images and struggled with math and statistics. Because the faculty in her programs allowed her to prove her knowledge in ways other than traditional testing, she was able to obtain her degrees. Grandin argues that some of the best minds in the world need to work outside of traditional paradigms and that the sciences should make allowances for researchers who do not proceed neatly through degree programs according to “normal” standards and timelines.

Dr. Hanggi is a scientist who studies horses. Her work interests Grandin because Hanggi uses the idea of core emotional systems. Horses, as prey animals, rely more on fear than predatory animals do, and fear alerts them to potential dangers and keeps them safe from predation. Horse handlers must understand how fear operates in horses so that they can work to decrease horses’ anxiety in everyday settings and train them properly. Horses are particularly fearful of new objects because they are wired to believe that new objects signal danger. Habituating horses to novel objects can be a time-consuming process, and Grandin suspected that this was because horses, like babies, do not recognize the same object when it is viewed from a new perspective. Crucially, Dr. Evelyn Hanggi’s study confirmed this. She found that “when she rotated children’s toys into different positions, the horses she tested recognized the object in some positions but not in others” (111). For Grandin, Hanggi’s work is important because it shows that a sophisticated understanding of core emotional systems can greatly help animal handlers to achieve success with their charges. Additionally, studying the core emotional systems can drive new research, producing results that are useful as contributions to science and as the basis for meaningful change in industry practices.

Mech is a noted researcher whose 13-year study of wolves on Ellesmere Island in Canada upended much of what was previously believed about wolves. Genetically, dogs are domesticated wolves and for years people believed that dogs shared many wolf behaviors including the supposed preference for packs and the dominance of one alpha male per pack. However, these outmoded ideas were based on research that was performed on captive wolves. By observing wolves in the wild, Mech discovered that they do not live in packs of unrelated animals. Instead, they live in small family groups in which one mating pair cares for several offspring. Mech also found that wolf groups can be fluid; if one of the mating pair’s sibling loses its mate or there is another wolf in the area without a family of its own, the solitary wolf might be absorbed into a different family unit. The wolves observed in captivity differed from wild wolf groups because the captive wolf group was made up of a larger number of unrelated animals. Because the wolves were forced to live together in captivity, they developed a strict hierarchy, and this unnatural behavior led researchers to the erroneous conclusion that a single alpha wolf dominates a group of wolves in the wild. In reality, the hierarchical pack organization was a coping strategy designed to minimize conflict in less-than-ideal circumstances. Mech’s wild wolves never developed an alpha, and the dominance in family groups sometimes shifted. During the first days and weeks after giving birth to her young, the female wolf fulfilled an observable leadership role in her group, while at other times, the male was more dominant.

Cesar Milan is a celebrity dog trainer who lives on a large property in Los Angeles with more than 30 rescue dogs. He is known for taking in aggressive animals that have not been successful in their homes or in a shelter environment. A strong advocate for the idea that humans should dominate their dogs, he advocates a human-as-pack-leader training model. Milan argues that dogs need dominance in order to be successful and that if humans do not become the leader of their pack, one of their dogs will.

The author notes that much of Milan’s philosophy is grounded on the now-debunked idea that dogs, like wolves, are pack animals who will naturally defer to a single alpha male. The issue with this notion is that it was based on research that has since been refuted by its researchers. The original wolf study that led to these conclusions was carried out by observing captive wolves that exhibited nonstandard behavior. Additionally, it is now understood that dogs in captivity function more like family members in a home. They are akin to children, and dog owners should treat their dogs like children who need guidance, rather than as wild animals who need to be dominated.

However, the author does note that because Milan has many dogs that are unrelated, his animals do function the way that the captive wolves in the original study did, establishing a strict hierarchy in order to manage their social relations and minimize conflict in this unnatural environment. Milan’s conclusions are drawn from his own observational data, and when taken in the context of his own “pack,” they are logical. The author does acknowledge that many of Milan’s training techniques can be modified to follow a gentler parent-child model. She also acknowledges that for dog owners with multiple dogs, their animals might develop a hierarchy; she recommends observing the behavior of such groups to determine whether they might require modified training and management.