What Animal Do You Have?

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I don’t know... I find geese pretty threatening.

My current cat Fraidy Cat, did something strange. It caught a bird. I went outside and found the cat and a bird sitting patiently about a foot away. Now I do not really think that he caught it. The bird probably was flying and ran into something and fell to the ground completely out of balance.

So I approached the bird and placed myself between the bird and the cat. I petted the cat and at the same time moved close to the bird with the other hand. The bird gathered all its energy and tried to fly away. It moved about 3 feet and crash landed. So I petted the cat and waited. In less then 2 minutes, the bird tried again and this time it was able to travel far enough that it was out of sight.

The cat looked around. "What happened to the Bird?" It looked at me and I just petted the cat and told him congratulations on catching a bird.

I have two cats. One is very overweight despite often not even getting up to eat and she is terrified of the garbage truck.
The other is very thin despite constantly stealing human food and he is not afraid of anything and is always trying to get outside.
I've had several rats as well--they're misunderstood but great animals. Sadly though they don't live very long.

A small black cat.

I once knew a man who had a pet pig called Rasher.

Lots of spiders and a small rat which occasionally appears in my kitchen and living room.

From my perspective, Aspies, may view animals very differently than many NTs. We share a closer relationship. Many times even animals that are shunned by other humans, we can develop a friendship with.

I recall as a small child of 3 or 4, collecting a den of snakes. I would travel the depths of the deep forest behind my home and live with all the wild animals for hours and hours. I was fearless.

I currently have two dogs and tortoise. I consider some of the animals that frequent my garden to be friends, although some of them clearly don't feel the same. The hedgehog for example seems ambivalent. The robins are very attentive, but the woodpecker disappears when he sees me coming. There are rodents around; rats, mice and shrews, which I shouldn't encourage but I like them too.

Right now, I don’t have any pets of my own but my parents have a cat. I’m preparing for my garter snake, though.

None as of now but like a year ago, I used to keep some fish (black mollies) in a fish tank

I have a black cat with a little bit of white fur. I guess technically, he's a Tuxedo cat. I love him a lot.

One of the more famous autistic is Temple Grandin.

That is just part of what Grandin, now a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, shared in her recent conversation with Megan Mueller, the Elizabeth Arnold Stevens Junior Professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

In this episode, Grandin shares how growing up with autism helped her understand the different ways animals experience the world, why she believes we need to fix how we socialize with dogs, and some of the most important lessons she’s learned over her pioneering career. Let’s listen in.

MEGAN MUELLER: Dr. Grandin, as a woman with autism, you’re also spokesperson for neuro-diverse individuals. Can you tell us a little bit more about when you first knew you wanted to work with animals and how you knew you wanted to work with animals?

TEMPLE GRANDIN: This gets to the really important thing, that students have to be exposed to things in order to get interested. I’m an Easterner originally. I was not exposed to livestock until I went to a boarding school when I was fourteen. We had a twelve-cow dairy. Then, when I was fifteen, I went to my aunt’s ranch in Arizona, got exposed to the beef industry. And when you get exposed to things, you’re going to find out what you like. You also might find out what you hate. So, I’m going to tell all students: do internships. Try on different careers. Try on stuff. Find out what you like. Find out what you don’t like.

MUELLER: That’s great—that’s great advice. How would you describe your relationship with animals now?

GRANDIN: Well, when I first started working with animals, I started looking at what cattle were seeing when they went through chutes. And at the time, I didn’t know that I was a visual thinker, that other people tended not to see these things. But it was obvious to me and I found if you take the distractions out of a facility—whether it’s a vaccinating facility or a meat plant—they go through the facility more easily.

Animals are sensory-based thinkers; they’re not word thinkers. It’s all about what they see, what they hear, the tone of the voice. They can tell whether it’s happy or whether it’s angry by the tone of the voice. It’s a sensory-based world; it’s not a word-based world. Get away from verbal language, then you’ll start to understand animals.

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So what is the bottom line here. Individual with autism (whether picture thinkers or word thinker) can relate to animals from a very different communication route then NTs. They become our friends. This is a skill set. We can learn to communicate with them using their skill sets rather then forcing them to communicate using human speech.

Bottom line: It is very advantageous for Autistic to have animals as friends.

The old cat that was given to me, has begun to portray kindness. He is always looking out for my arrival. When he sees me he comes out of hiding and wants to be petted. Every time he moves his head toward my hand and makes a hum. He finds joy in being petted.



Here is a man who knows how to make friends with cats.

About 6 months ago, I was given a cat. My wife thought it might be a good idea to have a small kitten. It might keep mice away from the home and she is scared of mice. So she asked someone and they provided her with a free cat. But it wasn't a kitten but rather a very old cat. You could tell by the fact that it had layers of white running through its hair. Not only that but it was A Fraidy Cat.

We made the mistake of putting it in the garage. The cat immediately ran off and hid for days. After a week we figured out how to remove it from the garage. We stopped feeding it and place food outside for him. He go the message and left the house and we shut the garage door. But he was A Fraidy Cat. He found another place to hide. It was someplace buried deep inside our truck. We had set up a nice area beneath the truck for him to sleep but he didn't like that and instead buried himself somewhere deep inside the truck.

Well this was not going to work. I have raised cats for many years and knew how to become friends with them. So I would feed him. But first, I would pet him. So each time I petted him, he learned that he would be feed quickly afterwards. So he began to want to be petted. Anytime he saw me he would approach and want to be petted.

But that did not solve the mice problem. I set up traps and caught the mice and then took them and placed them in his food. He ate the food but not the dead mouse until the very, very end. After about a dozen mice, he began to change.

I first noticed it when I approached him early in the morning and saw that a bird was on the ground about a foot from where he sat. I approached the cat and stood between him and the bird. I petted the cat and at the same time, I approached the bird with my hand. The bird flew about 5 feet away and crashed into the ground. I kept playing with the cat. Eventually the bird flew away. I was thinking to myself, did the cat catch a bird?

A few days later, I left the house and the cat had caught a chipmonk. The next day, he caught a butterfly. Yesterday he caught a lizard. He was always proud of his successes and would bring them to me for display. He is becoming a mouser but so far he hasn't brought back a mouse yet. But maybe soon, I can put the mousetraps away.