Kirsten's Reviews > Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

I totally loved this book, and found it almost impossible to prevent myself from reading sections out loud to my husband or anyone else who would listen. There are many fascinating anecdotes about both animals and autism, and for the most part the notes and bibliography allow one to follow up on some of the more striking stories.

Temple Grandin believes (and I admit, I also hold this believe pretty strongly) that animals must be met on their own terms -- it's not fair to treat animals like humans, and it causes us to miss things or do the animals disservice. At the same time, it's also a mistake to underestimate animal intelligence and the depths of animal experience.

I also deeply respect Grandin's work in making meat packing plants and feedlots more humane and less unnecessarily frightening. In particular, her discussion of commonsense ways that these plants can be inspected more efficiently and with better results presents an astonishingly simple and effective way to decrease accidents and animal suffering. I would have liked to have her address the meat and dairy industries in a little more depth, however. I'm not a vegetarian, but I do care about animals, and I would have liked to hear more about her feelings on whether certain methods of raising beef and dairy cattle lead to a less traumatic life for these animals. It's sort of a mistake in a lot of ways to ask whether raising a dairy cow one way or another is "more natural," since these animals have been domesticated for food production for thousands of years, but I would like to know whether she thinks grass fed animals lead better lives, etc.

One weird thing that other reviewers have mentioned is her conviction that albinism or even patches of unpigmented skin/white fur lead to ill health or behavioral problems. I've found some support for this in my own research; for example, Lethal White Syndrome is a genetic disorder that plagues white-coated offspring of "frame" patterned American Paint horses, and there are a lot of other cases of white-coated, blue-eyed animals having birth defects or genetic disorders. However, these seem to by and large be physical problems, rather than behavioral. Elsewhere in the book, Grandin discusses the problems that can occur when humans breed animals specifically for one characteristic (such as breeding collies for a narrower head, or selectively breeding for coloration), and it may be that what she is getting at is that breeding animals selectively to have white coats can cause other, unanticipated problems. Still, if that's the case, she's overstating it quite a bit here.

At any rate, this is a really fascinating book, and while I've spent a lot of time on a perceived flaw, it's really a pretty small part of the book. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in animals and how they think, and also to anyone who is interested in gaining insight into autism.