Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
By Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
Book Review by Rajan Koirala/ Oct. 31, 2011
Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals is a well-written book by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson. The book explores the relationship between human beings and the animals, the basic needs of the animals we keep at our houses, and the differences between the human and animal brains. However, the book fails to explain and relate the main title of the book ‘Animals Make Us Human’ to its contents.
Temple Grandin, an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University has written the book, and coauthored by Catherine Johnson, a writer specializing in neuropsychiatry and the brain. Grandin is also listed in the 2010 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in the category “Heroes” (Wikipedia, 2011).
“Dr. Temple Grandin is a rare breed, a sensitive scientist who doesn’t just theorize about ways to alleviate animal suffering, but she actually creates tangible solutions to the problems facing many animals,”(Greenmuze, 2009).
Even though the book is not categorized into sections, it has different categories of writing in nine chapters. The first chapter states what animals need to live good mental and physical lives. The second chapters through chapter seven have the summary of few domestic animals and their lifestyles whereas chapter eight and nine focus on wildlife and zoo animals. The Afterword section by the author at the end is her opinion on why she loves to work in an animal industry.
“When people are suffering mentally, they want to feel better—they want to stop having bad emotions and start having good emotions. That’s the right goal with animals, too,” (Grandin & Johnson, 2009).
The authors have wisely compared the mental states of animals and human beings. Grandin was a person with autism, a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication. Due to her experiences, she is able to illustrate how emotions can flow in animals with speaking disabilities. According to the authors, animals want to have good emotions as human beings desire.
Both the authors are dependant on the researches of Dr. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Washington State University who wrote the book Affective Neuroscience. His researches are explained and exemplified in many ways in the book. According to his research, all animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain called “blue-ribbon emotions.”
The “blue-ribbon emotions” components like seeking, fear, panic, lust, care and play of the animals are explained and compared with the human beings in the beginning of the book to prove that animals do not differ from human beings mentally and emotionally.
The authors have not only compared the mental structure in between the human beings and the animals but also request them to build an emotional connection with their pets to help them live in a good environment. The rule of stimulating seeking and playing rather than stimulating rage, fear and panic is the basic goal of their book.
“Everyone who is responsible for animals—farmers, ranchers, zookeepers, and pet owners—needs a set of simple, reliable guidelines for creating good mental welfare that can be applied to any animals in any situations, and the best guidelines we have are the core emotions systems in the brain,” (Grandin & Johnson, 2009).
Grandin often says to herself that why she didn’t change her career and work for the same industry after visiting the zoos and slaughterhouses. Because of the impression she has on some of the good managers, she saw that cattle could be raised right and given a good life and painless death. Her emotional attachment with the animals was the main reason.
“Over the years, some animal advocates have lamented Grandin’s willingness to serve as a consultant for ranchers and slaughterhouses. Others, however, argue that the innovations in animal handling she has pioneered have done an enormous amount to relieve animal suffering,” (Kehe, 2009).
The book also discusses the advantages of having pets at home. The authors have several real life stories from different pet keepers where their pets save their family members in life-death conditions. Others environmental benefits are also explained in the book.
“These new companion animals - and the eventual domestication of horses, camels, cows, goats, sheep, pigs and more - in essence allowed human beings to appropriate a new set of abilities: to be better hunters, to kill off household pests, to haul goods, pull plows, create fertilizer and protect homes against intruders,” (Bennett, 2010).
Most of the chapters in the book have the description of pets like dogs and cats, which catches the attention of the readers. The authors have clearly examined what kinds or colors dogs and cats are good to keep, which kinds are loyal, how they protect their masters and many more questions.
“For most people, her chapters on dogs and cats will be the most immediately rewarding--it never would have occurred to me that one reason cats' emotions are so hard to read is that they have no eyebrows--but there's a world of insight to be gained from her work on farm animals as well as more exotic zoo animals,” (Grossman, 2009).
The authors, at the end, concluded that our (human beings) relationship with animals is symbiotic. We use them for our food and they are dependent on us for their food and shelter.
“We provide the farm animals with food and housing and in return, most of the offspring from the breeding cows on the ranches are used for food,” (Grandin & Johnson, 2009).
The authors have done an excellent job in writing the book with their wide researches and different sources. However, it is confusing to the readers who actually wrote the chapters since the authors’ name lack in chapters’ title. During my research online, most of the book reviews has Grandin as the author but Johnson’s name is seen in only few.
The book can be a good source for the people interested in keeping pets at their houses, specially who like dogs and cats. Also, it is a good book for psychology students to read about “animals’ emotion systems.” The paragraphs are easy to read and understand in the book. So, I would recommend this book to pet lovers and haters as well as the general readers from children to old folks.
References (APA)
Grandin, T., & Johnson, C. (2009). Animals make us human: Creating the best life for animals. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Greenmuze, S. (2009, April 15). Animals make us human review. Retrieved from http://www.greenmuze.com/reviews/books/1029-animals-make-us-human-review-.html
Kehe, M. (2009, January 26). Animals make us human temple grandin explains what animals feel and why it matters. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2009/0126/animals-make-us-human
Bennett, D. (2010, October 16). Drake bennett: Animals make us human. THe Dallas Morning News. Retrieved from http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20101015-Drake-Bennett-Animals-make-us-3792.ece
Grossman, L. (2009, January 15). Our inner animals. Time Magazine, Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1871906-1,00.html