Praise for Animals Make Us Human

"Provocative...We’re lucky to have Temple Grandin." --*New York Times

• "Part owner's manual and part business proposal, Animals Make Us Human argues that we can treat animals better if we consider the emotions that motivate them...For pet owners, her perspecitve is invaluable...Grade: A-" -- *Entertainment Weekly
• A well-written, down-to-earth look into the lives of lots of animals, including animals that make up part of our food chain. Grade: A" - *Rocky Mountain News
• "Packed with fascinating insights, unexpected observations and a wealth of how-to tips, Grandin's peppy work ably challenges assumptions about what makes animals happy." - STARRED *Publishers Weekly
• "The text provides thought-provoking scenarios and references several animal studies...readers will be able to glean new perspectives about animal welfare." -*Library Journal

• Praise for Animals in Translation

  “Inspiring . . . Crammed with facts and anecdotes about Temple Grandin’s favorite subject: the senses, brains, emotions, and amazing talents of animals.”—*New York Times Book Review

• “A master intermediary between humans and our fellow beasts . . . At once hilarious, fascinating, and just plain weird, Animals is one of those rare books that elicits a ‘wow’ on almost every page. A.”—*Entertainment Weekly

  “At times, it is difficult to work out whether this is a book about animal behavior with insight from autism, or a book about autism that uses animal behavior to explain what it is like to be autistic. A major achievement of the book is that it is both.”—Nature

• Autorentext

  TEMPLE GRANDIN is one of the world’s most accomplished and well-known adults with autism. She is a professor at Colorado State University and the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including The Autistic Brain, which have sold more than a million copies. Named one of Time's most influential people in 2010, the HBO movie based on her life, starring Claire Danes, received seven Emmy Awards.

  Klappentext

  The best-selling animal advocate Temple Grandin offers the most exciting exploration of how animals feel since The Hidden Life of Dogs. In her groundbreaking and best-selling book Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin drew on her own experience with autism as well as her distinguished career as an animal scientist to deliver extraordinary insights into how animals think, act, and feel.Now she builds on those insights to show us how to give our animals the best and happiest life-on their terms, not ours. It's usually easy to pinpoint the cause of physical pain in animals, but to know what is causing them emotional distress is much harder.Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals.Then she explains how to fulfill them for dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, and zoo animals.Whether it's how to make the healthiest environment for the dog you must leave alone most of the day, how to keep pigs from being bored, or how to know if the lion pacing in the zoo is miserable or just exercising, Grandin teaches us to challenge our assumptions about animal contentment and honor our bond with our fellow creatures. Animals Make Us Human is the culmination of almost thirty years of research, experimentation, and experience. This is essential reading for anyone who's ever owned, cared for, or simply cared about an anima

  Zusammenfassung
  *A NEW YORK TIMES* BESTSELLER

  From beloved animal expert Temple Grandin, a fascinating exploration on how animals feel—essential reading for anyone who's ever owned, cared for, or simply cared about an animal.

  **While it's usually easy to pinpoint the cause of physical pain in animals, to know what's causing them emotional distress is much harder. Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals. Then she explains how to fulfill them for dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, and zoo animals. Whether it's how to make the healthiest environment for the dog you must leave alone most of the day, how to keep pigs from being bored, or how to know if the lion pacing in the zoo is miserable or just exercising, Grandin teaches us to challenge our assumptions about animal contentment and honor our bond with our fellow creatures.

  Leseprobe

WHAT DOES AN ANIMAL NEED to have a good life?
     I don’t mean a good life physically. We know a lot about what kind of food, water, exercise, and veterinary care animals need to grow well and be healthy.
     I mean a good mental life.
     What does an animal need to be happy? The animal welfare movement has been thinking about animals’ mental welfare at least since the 1960s. That’s when the British government commissioned the Brambell Report on intensive animal production. Intensive animal production means very big farms raising large numbers of animals for slaughter or egg production in very small spaces compared to traditional farms. The Brambell committee listed the five freedoms animals should have. The first three freedoms are about physical welfare, and the last two are about mental welfare:

     • freedom from hunger and thirst
     • freedom from discomfort
     • freedom from pain, injury, or disease
     • freedom to express normal behavior
     • freedom from fear and distress

1 What Do Animals Need?

Freedom is a confusing guide for people trying to give animals a good life. Even freedom from fear, which sounds straightforward, isn’t simple or obvious. For example, zookeepers and farmers usually assume that as long as a prey species animal doesn’t have any predators around, it can’t be afraid. But that’s not the way fear works inside the brain. If you felt fear only when you are face-to-face with the animal that’s going to kill you and eat you, that would be too late. Prey species animals feel afraid when they’re out in the open and exposed to potential predators. For example, a hen has to have a place to hide when she lays her eggs. It doesn’t matter that she’s laying her eggs on a commercial farm inside a barn that no fox will ever get into. The hen has evolved to hide when she lays her eggs. Hiding is what gives her freedom from fear, not living in a barn that keeps the foxes out. I’ll talk more about this in my chapter on chickens.
     The freedom to express normal behavior is even more complicated and hard to apply in the real world. In many cases, it’s impossible to give a domestic or captive animal the freedom to express a normal behavior. For a dog, normal behavior is to roam many miles a day, which is illegal in most towns. Even if it’s not illegal, it’s dangerous. So you have to figure out substitute behaviors that keep your dog happy and stimulated.
     In other cases, we don’t know how to create the right living conditions because we don’t know enough about what the normal behavior of a particular animal is. Cheetahs are a good example. Zookeepers tried to breed cheetahs for years with almost no success. That’s a common problem in zoos. Breeding is one of the most basic and normal behaviors there is. There wouldn’t be any animals or people without it. But a lot of animals living in captivity don’t mate successfully because there’s something wrong with their living conditions that stops them from acting naturally. The cheetah-breeding problem was finally solved in 1994, when a study of che…