Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Grandin’s primary goal in writing this book is to raise awareness about the impact that core emotional systems have on animal behavior. As she explains, “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” (3).Grandin argues that because all animal behavior is driven by emotions, humans should seek to better understand those emotions so that they can positively impact animal welfare for companion, commercial, zoo, and wild animals. Grandin identifies four core emotions: fear, rage, panic, and seeking. 

By analyzing the manifestations of these emotions in the context of commercialized agriculture, Grandin works to improve animal welfare across various industries. She has spent the most time working with cattle, but she has also consulted for poultry and pork producers, and her work has led to a tremendous degree of change in the American meat industry. In this book, she explains how her knowledge of the core emotional systems underpins her approach to animal welfare. For example, her understanding of the panic system led to the realization that cows and pigs were being weaned from their mothers too quickly, and she introduced changes to industry-wide weaning practices that allowed young cows and pigs to remain with their mothers long enough to mitigate emotional distress at the time of separation.