Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Animals Make Us Human (2009) is a work of nonfiction by Temple Grandin, a celebrated author, scientist, researcher, agricultural consultant, and professor who is also known for her work in the animal industry and her advocacy and personal experience with autism. The text is a sequel to Grandin’s bestselling work, Animals in Translation (2005), and continues that text’s exploration of animal-human interactions. Grandin has written and spoken widely about the ways that her autism has helped her to better understand animals and positively impact the field of animal welfare, and she has become a leading advocate for ethics in big agriculture. 

Grandin first rose to prominence after the publication of her memoir, Thinking in Pictures (1995), in which she details her work in the cattle industry and focuses on how she adapted her own coping mechanisms for autism to the world of industrialized agriculture. She makes numerous references to that text in Animals Make Us Human, but she also expands her ideas to include advice for people who wish to better understand domestic, wild, and zoo animals. In chapters that are each dedicated to one kind of animal, Grandin explains the tenets of Using Core Emotional Systems to Improve Animal Welfare. She views her Autism as a Framework for Understanding Animals and attempts to resolve The Tension between Animal Ethics and Productivity, arguing that profits and productivity do not need to be sacrificed in order to treat animals humanely in settings such as cattle, pig, and poultry farms. 

This guide refers to the 2009 hardcover edition by Houghton Mifflin.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of animal cruelty.

Summary

Grandin begins by asking what animals need in order to be happy. Her first chapter argues that humans can help to improve the lives of domestic, agricultural, wild, and zoo animals by understanding the core emotional systems that drive animal behavior. All animals, including humans, are motivated by four key systems: fear, rage, panic, and seeking. Whereas fear keeps animals safe from danger, animals experience rage when they are caged or contained. Panic is the feeling of having been abandoned or separated from a social group, and seeking includes the drive to learn, explore the environment, or hunt prey. Animals can also benefit from play, although play is considered a secondary emotional system.

Grandin devotes her second chapter to dogs, naming them unique among animals because of their strong orientation toward humans and because they can be trained solely through the use of social approval. As she notes, dogs enjoy treats but will learn new behaviors just to please their trainers. Grandin also observes that many beliefs about dogs are incorrect and have been based upon now-disproven research. As was previously thought, dogs are not innate pack animals that develop dominance hierarchies and need to be dominated by their owners. Like wolves, they evolved to live in small family groups, and they view their owners more as parents than as “pack leaders.” This knowledge can help dog owners to provide their dogs with an equal balance of structure, training, enrichment, and love.

Cats are also social, but they did not go through the same domestication process that dogs did. Dogs have been living within human settlements and societies for thousands of years, but cats have lived alongside humans for far less time, and unlike dogs, they never became fully tame. The knowledge that cats remain partially undomesticated can help cat caregivers to meet their cats’ seeking needs by crafting enrichment and play activities that mimic hunting. This approach will make it easier for caregivers to avoid activating their cats’ fear, rage, and panic drives.

Horses are prey animals, and as such, they are often motivated by fear. For this reason, horse training can be an arduous task. The author advocates for training horses slowly, gradually habituating them to various fear triggers. This kind of training makes use of the core emotional systems and leads to fewer stressful or traumatic experiences for horses. The author acknowledges that training based upon core emotional systems is an innovative approach that some trainers and handlers have been slow to adopt. She understands that her framework runs counter to much of what people once believed about horses, but she emphasizes that she has seen its benefits firsthand.

The author has the greatest professional familiarity with cattle because she has worked as a consultant in the cattle industry for years and has developed a series of best practices for the owners of cattle ranches, feedlots, and slaughterhouses who want to improve their approach to animal welfare. Although there are humane cattle workers, the author has observed countless acts of cruelty in the cattle industry and notes the industry-wide adoption of harmful standards that stress and traumatize cattle. She advocates for housing, transport, and slaughter techniques that make use of scientific knowledge about fear and panic in cattle in order to improve conditions for an animal that is one of the most common protein sources for Americans.

Pigs are another animal commonly raised for food in the United States. Like the cattle industry, the pork industry has long been plagued by animal welfare issues, and the author has consulted for many companies that subjected pigs to needlessly cruel conditions. Because pigs are highly intelligent animals with a strong seeking drive, the author argues that they should not be contained in small pens. She also states that the young should be weaned slowly from their mothers and that more care should be taken to house pigs in social groups that more closely resemble the way that pigs socialize in the wild.

The poultry industry too routinely uses inhumane practices. The author argues that the first step toward introducing better animal welfare standards in chicken barns and processing plants is to focus on consciousness-raising. She notes the prevalence of inaccurate ideas about poultry, such as the mistaken impression that chickens do not experience physical pain or emotional distress. Grandin has consulted for large companies (like McDonald’s) that drive industry standards, and she has been pleased to observe that positive change is possible.

Grandin then shifts gears and explains that a better understanding of core emotional systems can help wildlife as well. She argues that the best wildlife research relies on observational fieldwork and notes with chagrin the rise in popularity of technology such as computerized modeling. She asserts that researchers with a complex understanding of the interplay between core emotional systems and behavior are better equipped to advance scientific knowledge about wild animals. She also advocates for non-traditional educational paths, noting that both she and Jane Goodall (the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzee behavior) worked outside of traditional paradigms in their educational careers. She suspects that people with autism in particular have a better understanding of animal behavior, noting that they often need some modification in traditional degree planning and structure.

In her final chapter, Grandin describes the positive changes that she has observed in zoos throughout her life. While small cages without enrichment were once commonplace, zoo animals are now routinely kept in conditions that mimic their wild habitats to the highest degree possible. Still, she sees room for improvement. She believes that gaining a solid understanding of the different ways in which various species experience fear, rage, panic, and the need to seek and play can help zookeepers provide not just adequate but thriving conditions for animals. In her Afterword, she answers the oft-asked question of why she continues to work in an industry in which animals are routinely harmed, explaining that she feels she can do more for animal welfare by working to change industry standards from the inside than she could by protesting them from the outside.