Temple Grandin
There are three basic ways [to use a dog to work with autistic children], one is just to be companion person and I'm thinking now more of autistic kids not somebody in a wheelchair or the dog belongs to a therapist and then it's used as an ice breaker to get the kid talking and get the kid interacting.Collection: Dog
The reason why feral kitties are hard to tame is because they have missed socialization the period - you need to be touching and petting those kittens when they are real young.Collection: Real
You can tame feral cats, but you are never gonna get them like a cat that's been socialized at a very young age.Collection: Mean
Seeking is a combination of emotions people usually think of as being different: wanting something really good, looking forward to getting something really good and curiosity. Seeking gives you the energy to go after your goals.Collection: Thinking
You get these fear memories that are hard to undo.Collection: Memories
The autistic brain tends to be a specialist brain, good at one thing, bad at something else.Collection: Brain
Different cats don't like certain litter. They also don't like an unstable floor, no animal like's unstable floor. So if you put a thin piece of plastic down under a litter box and the cat walks on it and starts to slip, they don't like that. Any animal doesn't like an unstable floor.Collection: Cat
I want to make sure to fix these obvious things - like keeping the box CLEAN! Another thing that might affect this [cats going outside the litter box] is if you put the litter box in a laundry room where people are walking by there all the time, the cat might feel kinda too exposed. When you gotta poop, you know, it takes a little longer. You want a little more privacy.Collection: Cat
I've got a lot of people that are really good at taming animals and working with animals; and they can't explain how they do. They just get a feeling from the animal.Collection: Animal
Things like microphones are dangerous things because you never know when they might feedback and squeal.Collection: Might
I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits. I mean after all, the first stone spear was not designed by the totally social people.Collection: Mean
Now there are a few things with a shelter - like with noise control, don't face dog runs facing each other that tends to encourage barking. The problem you've got is that the kind of materials that absorb noise are difficult to clean. One of the biggest problems in the design of animal shelters is that animals are barking and it's like the sound of a jet plane taking off.Collection: Running
My life - autism's an important part of it, but it bothers me when I see kids where autism and their autism is the only thing they think about. I'd rather have them think about, you know, some art work they were gonna do or some science they wanted to do.Collection: Art
I get asked a lot why cats mess outside the litter box. The simplest thing is if you have more than one cat and you have two litter boxes, don't put them right next to each other.Collection: Cat
Engineering is easy - it's the people problems that are hard.Collection: Engineering
Half of Silicon Valley's got a little bit of autism.Collection: Autism
The people that were socially awkward from my generation, they all had paper routes and that taught them the discipline of work.Collection: Discipline
The animal that I have worked with the most is beef cattle, so that's my favorite animal, but I like all animals.Collection: Animal
Some autistic people have savant skills. All autistic people do not have savant skills. Autism is a very variable disorder varying all the way from Einstein, emollient scientist, just a little bit of the trait, many scientist and engineers, down to somebody that's going to remain nonverbal.Collection: Skills
We breed dogs to be more social than the wolf. There is very interesting research that has been done with a wolf and a domestic dog. If you have a tamed wolf and you have him sit in front of the experimenter or stand in front of his master and his two dishes, one to the right, one to the left – so that the dog or wolf see the food put in the left hand dish but the owner points to the right – the domesticated will go where owner points, whereas the the wolf goes right where he saw the meat thing put. In other words, in a dog social cue from a master can override where he saw the being placed.Collection: Dog
The dog is more social. I am not saying that cats are totally unsocial but dogs are more social.Collection: Dog
Animals are like autistic savants. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that animals might actually be autistic savants. Animals have special talents normal people don't, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don't; and at least some animals have special forms of genius normal people don't, the same way some autistic savants have special forms of genius. I think most of the time animal genius probably happens for the same reason autistic genius does: a difference in the brain autistic people share with animals.Collection: Animal
we raise them for us; that means we owe them some respect. nature is creul but we dont have to be. i wouldnt want to have my guts ripped out by a lion. i'd much rather die in a slaughter house if it were done right.Collection: Mean
I studied a lot of animal behavior and one of the things I find really interesting is the whole idea that animals are sensory based thinkers and I wrote about this in my book, Animals in Translation. That an animal's memory is not in words, they've got to be in pictures - it's very detailed so let's say the animal gets afraid of something - they'll get afraid of something that they're looking at or hearing, the moment the bad thing happens.Collection: Memories
A cat you train with clicker training and what you've got to do is pair the click with a food reward. And he's doing the stuff because you get a food reward. Once you can do it all after a lot training with no food reward.Collection: Cat