Critter Geek

This great book by Temple Grandin gave me new insight into animal behavior, especially with a new pup who came into our lives during the time I was reading Animals in Translation.

This is a fascinating book written by a fascinating woman with autism. Grandin claims that the condition of autism removes sensory filters that the rest of us have, making it easier for her to understand what the world might be like from an animal’s point of view. Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and she works with livestock handling facilities to improve the process of, among other things, slaughtering animals. Which might make her an unusual person to be featured in the first real post of a blog for people who love animals. But I believe that Grandin’s work is beautiful and profound, and does more for animals than many other well-meaning efforts.

Forget all of that….Animals in Translation is just plainly a good read. There are parts of the book that are a little slow or maybe repetitive, but this didn’t make me enjoy the book less. What I really liked was how I could immediately use what I learned to understand my new dog better. When Laika balked while walking along a sidewalk at work, I realized that we were heading into bright sun after being under an overhang, and knew that she couldn’t see, and needed some time to adjust. And it’s been fun getting down on her level, as Grandin advises, to try to see what she’s seeing…the other day on a walk, she was absorbed in something further up the path. Thinking it was quail or some other animal, I tried in vain to figure out what she was looking at. But when I got down so I could see along her line of sight, I realize with a laugh that she was looking out in the distance to where a loader was moving dirt around in a field. Not as exciting as the coyote we found by watching her behavior like this, but good for a laugh anyhow!

It’s an interesting book by an interesting author, and if you love animals and understanding them, it’s a real gift.