Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Temple Grandin
are too abstractified, even the people who are hands-on. Thatâs because people arenât just abstract in their thinking, theyâre abstract in their seeing and hearing. Normal human beings are abstractified in their sensory perceptions as well as their thoughts.
Thatâs why the workers at the facility where the cattle wouldnât go inside a dark building couldnât figure out what the problem was. They werenât seeing the setup as it actually existed; they were seeing the abstract, generalized concept of the setup they had inside their heads. In their minds their facility was identical to every other facility in the industry, and on paper it was identical. But in real life it was different, and they couldnât see it. Iâm not just talking about management. The guys in the yard, who were there working with the animals, trying to get them to walk inside the building, couldnât see it, either.
Thatâs the big difference between animals and people, and also between autistic people and nonautistic people. Animals and autistic people donât see their ideas of things; they see the actual things themselves. We see the details that make up the world, while normal people blur all those details together into their general concept of the world.
A huge amount of my consulting business is getting paid to see all the stuff normal people canât see. I do this constantly. Not too long ago I got a call to go out to a meatpacking plant where the animals were getting big fat bruises on their loins. The loin is the area in between a cowâs rib cage and its rear leg. Itâs the most expensive part of the animal, because thatâs where the steak is located. So nobody wants their cattle getting bruised loins. A bruise means bleeding inside the muscle, and the bloody area has to be cut out in the butchering process, which means less meat to sell. Delaying slaughter until the bruise clears up doesnât help, either, because a healed bruise leaves behind tough meat and gristle. Gristle is scar tissue. Just about any injury, no matter how tiny, can produce gristle, including the needle used in a cowâs vaccinations. (To prevent scarring from vaccination, you have to give the shot just under the skin.The beef industry is working hard trying to get feedlot employees and ranchers to give shots correctly.)
So here was this plant with all its beautiful, well-tended cattle walking around with big bruises on their sides, and nobody could figure out how they were getting them. One minute a cow would be fine; the next minute the same cow would have a great big shiner on her side.
They brought me out, and I walked into the chute to take a look around. Thatâs the first thing I always do, because you canât solve an animal mystery unless you put yourself in their placeâ literally in their place. You have to go where the animal goes, and do what the animal does.
The chute turned out to be the problem. There was a sharp three-inch piece of metal sticking out from the side, and the cattle were hitting it. That little shard of metal was obvious to me, but not one person at the plant had spotted itâand all of them were looking. I think they probably would have seen it pretty quickly if any of the cattle had bellowed when they hit it, but the cattle didnât yelp. The animals were hitting hard enough to bruise themselves, but not hard enough for it to really hurt.
W HAT D O A NIMALS S EE ?
When an animal or an autistic person is seeing the real world instead of his idea of the world that means heâs seeing detail. This is the single most important thing to know about the way animals perceive the world: animals see details people donât see. They are totally detail-oriented. Thatâs the key.
It took me almost thirty years to figure this out. During all that time I kept a growing list of small details that could spook an animal without realizing that âseeing in
Thatâs why the workers at the facility where the cattle wouldnât go inside a dark building couldnât figure out what the problem was. They werenât seeing the setup as it actually existed; they were seeing the abstract, generalized concept of the setup they had inside their heads. In their minds their facility was identical to every other facility in the industry, and on paper it was identical. But in real life it was different, and they couldnât see it. Iâm not just talking about management. The guys in the yard, who were there working with the animals, trying to get them to walk inside the building, couldnât see it, either.
Thatâs the big difference between animals and people, and also between autistic people and nonautistic people. Animals and autistic people donât see their ideas of things; they see the actual things themselves. We see the details that make up the world, while normal people blur all those details together into their general concept of the world.
A huge amount of my consulting business is getting paid to see all the stuff normal people canât see. I do this constantly. Not too long ago I got a call to go out to a meatpacking plant where the animals were getting big fat bruises on their loins. The loin is the area in between a cowâs rib cage and its rear leg. Itâs the most expensive part of the animal, because thatâs where the steak is located. So nobody wants their cattle getting bruised loins. A bruise means bleeding inside the muscle, and the bloody area has to be cut out in the butchering process, which means less meat to sell. Delaying slaughter until the bruise clears up doesnât help, either, because a healed bruise leaves behind tough meat and gristle. Gristle is scar tissue. Just about any injury, no matter how tiny, can produce gristle, including the needle used in a cowâs vaccinations. (To prevent scarring from vaccination, you have to give the shot just under the skin.The beef industry is working hard trying to get feedlot employees and ranchers to give shots correctly.)
So here was this plant with all its beautiful, well-tended cattle walking around with big bruises on their sides, and nobody could figure out how they were getting them. One minute a cow would be fine; the next minute the same cow would have a great big shiner on her side.
They brought me out, and I walked into the chute to take a look around. Thatâs the first thing I always do, because you canât solve an animal mystery unless you put yourself in their placeâ literally in their place. You have to go where the animal goes, and do what the animal does.
The chute turned out to be the problem. There was a sharp three-inch piece of metal sticking out from the side, and the cattle were hitting it. That little shard of metal was obvious to me, but not one person at the plant had spotted itâand all of them were looking. I think they probably would have seen it pretty quickly if any of the cattle had bellowed when they hit it, but the cattle didnât yelp. The animals were hitting hard enough to bruise themselves, but not hard enough for it to really hurt.
W HAT D O A NIMALS S EE ?
When an animal or an autistic person is seeing the real world instead of his idea of the world that means heâs seeing detail. This is the single most important thing to know about the way animals perceive the world: animals see details people donât see. They are totally detail-oriented. Thatâs the key.
It took me almost thirty years to figure this out. During all that time I kept a growing list of small details that could spook an animal without realizing that âseeing in