BOOK REVIEW:

“Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior”

• by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
• book review by Marcia Barkley

Temple Grandin is autistic, but with medication and special attention she has overcome the many challenges of autism to earn a Ph.D. in animal science, found her own company (which monitors the conditions of animal facilities such as stockyards and finds ways to make them more humane), and authored four books on animal behavior.

This latest book caught my eye one evening at Barnes & Noble; it was on sale, and I bought it on a whim.  It has turned out to be one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time.  It’s not the kind of book that you read for a whole evening, and there are no cute stories, but there are a lot of insights into animal behavior in general, and many of the examples she uses focus on dogs.  She does have some pretty strong opinions, so not everyone will appreciate the way she says things, but those opinions are based on years of research and observation.  I’d like to share just a few of those observations with you.

• “With domestic animals, we are the main engine of evolution.  We’re constantly changing their bodies and their emotions, and it happens a lot faster than we realize…. When you consciously and purposely breed animals to change one defined physical trait dramatically from what nature intended, then you can definitely end up with some major emotional and behavioral problems…. The body and the brain aren’t two different things, controlled by two completely different sets of genes.  Many of the same chemicals that work in your heart and organs also work in your brain, and many genes do one thing in your body and another thing in your brain …. This is a very serious problem in the selective breeding of animals…. The distressing thing is that with single-trait breeding for a physical trait, nobody notices the emotional changes that are emerging right along with the altered physical trait, because nobody is expecting to see any emotional changes.”  She gives several examples: chickens that were bred to produce more eggs on less feed, and became more hyperactive and neurotic; a particular breed of dogs that have been bred for a long narrow nose and have become noticeably less intelligent than 30 years ago; and pigs bred to produce leaner meat that became significantly more aggressive.

• Animals are extremely visual – which makes sense: they rely on visual cues as well as scent and hearing to indicate possible danger.  When they see something that is unusual and/or unexpected, it can scare the daylights out of them.  When they finally realize that it’s not a threat, and if it’s something that moves, it can become an obsession – think of a puppy that’s fascinated by the shadow of a tree branch, or a cat that will watch leaf shadows for an hour.  Many dog trainers rely as much on hand signals and body language as on verbal commands; in fact, most people who have even a little experience with dog agility training and competition have learned that the dog will follow their body language more often than they will follow verbal commands.  Deaf dogs can be taught as much as any hearing dog, using just hand signals.

• Animal behaviors agree that animal aggression has many different causes.  Aggression may be caused by fear – the animal perceives itself to be in danger, can’t get away, and reacts with its teeth. [That’s why we see the most “incidents” at the entrance of the dog park: “the pack” comes to greet “the newcomer” who then feels cornered and instinctively reacts with a snarl and a lunge.]  Aggression can be territorial in nature – the animal is defending its territory (which is one of the reasons that Rottwielers, which are notoriously territorial, are so popular as guard dogs).  Inter-male aggression is common between unneutered males, and is plainly linked to testosterone.  Aggression can be triggered by high levels of stress, especially if the stress continues over a long period of time.  (Stress in animals can be minimized with plenty of exercise – for most larger dogs, a 20-minute walk around the block won’t be enough – and by having plenty of companionship: dogs are social animals, just as we are, and are much happier, healthier and easy to live with if they are not left alone all day.)
  
  
• “All animals that live in groups – and that is most mammals – form dominance hierarchies.  Animals are not democratic and there is always an alpha animal …. Dog owners must establish themselves as the alpha, period ….  Establishing dominance over a dog is easy.  Many people think that exerting dominance means beating an animal into submission, but that’s not true at all ….  The best way to establish dominance are obedience training and making the dog sit quietly before he is fed.  The dog should learn that he eats on his owner’s terms …. You also have to do at least some obedience training… The commands can be anything you like.  You could get fancy and train your dog to herd sheep, bring your slippers, or wear a tutu and spin around in circles; it doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that the dog learns to obey commands from his master.”

• “Through all the years that dogs have been living with humans they’ve developed a lot of ability to read people, to know what people are thinking and what they’re likely to do.  We know this from research comparing dogs to wolves.  Even a wolf who has been reared by human beings never acquires the ability to read people’s faces the way any normal dog does.  A human-reared wolf mostly doesn’t look at his master’s face, even when he’s in a situation where he could use his master’s help.  Dogs always look at their owner’s faces for information, especially if they need help.”

There are many, many more ideas in this book than I can possibly summarize here.  For example, Ms. Grandin discusses the structure of human and animal brains, how they are similar and how they are different (and she does it in a way that the rest of us can understand, even without an education in neurology), and the comparisons are actually pretty interesting. 

She often brings in scientific fact to explain animal behavior, such as behaviors related to hormones and brain chemicals – it turns out that the same chemicals that are related to happiness, fear and other emotions in humans are equally at play in the animal brain.  And that’s probably one of the most interesting things I’m learning from this book: animals – and for those of us reading this web site, that mostly means dogs! – do experience emotion, they simply deal with it differently than we do.  They need social interaction, and they need structure in their lives, just as we do – they just don’t have the same language skills that we do, and can’t tell us when those needs aren’t being met.  For me, that means that I, the guardian of my dogs, have the responsibility to understand their needs as best I can.

Marcia Barkley