Can animals spot Aspies and Love them?

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Oh - i thought it was because i didnt smell like a meat eater that all the animals didnt mind me

I can see how it could be an eye contact and demeanour thing though....

I have some experiences with some of the same animals in particular, but most animals generally

I have a friend of the family who owns a farm and who got some new horses. I was comfortable around all but 1 of the 3 new horses, like a weird sixth sense. I told the guy that the one horse really shouldnt be ridden for a while until he had become more comfortable with people. Well this was before people listened to me, so i was ignored, a week later the horse kicked the guy in the chest and nearly killed him and it took him six months to recover......

Then there have been the usual domestic pets, i havent met a cat or dog yet that didnt immediately abandon its owner for me. A cousin i met for the first time last year had a cattledog with her that she had saved from the pound. I rocked up and hadnt met either of them before and within minutes the dog was sitting beside me with her head in my lap a complete sook. My cousin said she couldnt believe it, she said the dog doesnt trust any man but me, apparently her previous owner had badly mistreated her and ever since she hasnt trusted any man. Ive seen the dog since with other members of the family who are men and its 100% true.

My mums dog is a crankypants and she has bitten everyone else shes ever met, except me. Even when i went to pat her one day and thought she heard me come up behind her, but she hadnt, she snapped her teeth down on my hand as she turned, then releaised it was me and barely left teeth impressions on my hand...no pressure at all. Others have not been so fortunate.

And the other proof that animals are better judges of character than people is the time when i was about 20 and a friend was in trouble and i couldnt get their parents on the phone, i instead got a train to their place about 100 miles away. I got to their place and it was surrounded by a high fence with no doorbell or anyway of getting their attention , so i had to jump it. So i did, and walked right up to the front door, where i found two rottweilers sitting on t he porch. They didnt give me a second look as i knocked on the door. My friends parents were far more surprised, couldnt understand how i got to the door without being eaten by the guard dogs....

I also have a sunday morning ritual where i go sit in the local park and read, just to get out of my cell. I always bring croissants and read for a few hours. The first week i did this, the birds were friendly but standoffish, but i fed them by hand, something they appear too skittish to do with anyone else. The second week and ever since, they sit on the bench next to me and wait patiently for me to get the croissants out, and once im finished and start to read (and block out the humans) they either jump on my choulder or lap to try and milk another crumb out of me.

Ive also had regular bird that would come and feed from my 3rd floor window where I live right in the city. I would regularly share some of my wheat bix cereal with him. One morning i was sick and stuck in bed fast asleep and must have slept past the usual time by a margin because next thing i know theres something hopping up the blanket....he had gotten impatient and climbed in under the gap in the window. Anytime i was running late the bird would repeat the wakeup service . This went on for about 4 months until it suddenly stopped, and weet bix bird was never seen again.

My favourites animals are cats though, ive always had spooky understanding and close friendship with them. My last one, who hasnt been replaced since she died 10 years ago because she was unique, was my closest friend for a long time. She was very clever, she could open doors (my dad used to leave her in rooms and close the door all the time), she could open cupboards and feed herself from the cat food if we were late getting home, and most importantly she slept next to me with her head on my pillow like a human all her life. When she was a kitten mum put her in her cat bed the first night we met, and about 10 minutes later she had jumped up on the bed and burrowed under the blanket until she was lying next to me, head on pillow, purred for 5 minutes and went to sleep, and that was how it stayed. She was very inquisitive and you always thought she was more than a cat, a builder who became a family friend (he built extensions etc over many years at our house) was over at the house recently and stopped on his way into the house to look at a picture of her thats on the wall and said "you know, i miss your cat, wherever i was working she was never more than 5 feet away watching me work and really interested in what i was doing, at one point i thought she was going to start handing me the tools". I could go on, she was one fo a kind. Ive only just started thinking about getting another one, its taken me that long to get over her dying.

When i was about 11 we had two cats, and i had pet mice. Usually not a good mix. But they actually got on well with each other. We lived in a big house on a semi rural property and so had field mice that would cohabitate with us, especially during winter. My mice worked out how to get out of there cage, but they would also get back in again. More than once though, i would be sitting watching TV or reading and one of our cats (always the same one) would jump into my lap and drop something...whichever mouse had gotten out. Normally when cats catch something whatever they catch is wet with saliva, but not my pet mice. Any other mouse that ever set foot in the house and got caught was dispatched. Our cats never hurt a hair on my pet mice though.

Animals are more honest and trustworthy than people.

I remember years ago I caught a ride with some other people. There was a dog in the back seat. As soon as I sat down the dog laid it's head on my shoulder. I had never met the dog before. Warm glow.

animals (friends' and family's pets for instance) do seem to particularly love me. but i have 3 cats myself so maybe because of my having some cat scent / fur on me that made me more approachable?

kids like me too for some reason. like in public transport or in restaurants, i always have little children coming up to me and wanting to play with me. i never know what to do cos i've never been with kids (of any age)!

Interesting theory. Judging by people's descriptions here, maybe there really is certain Aspie-behavior that makes animals more comfortable. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and let wishful thinking fool us. Just saying, you know, the first poster made it sound like Aspies were totally special, and that animals like us cause we're better than others. I know we want that to be true to balance the bullying we've been going through by NTs, but that doesn't automatically make it so. Also, let's not fall victim to confirmation bias (i.e. everyone here remembers only the times they were good with animals, not the times they weren't). And it would be interesting if we had more NTs to compare, to see if they have the same kind of luck.

Let's see...some times I was good with animals:
- My friend's cat is shy and doesn't like strangers. He said he was surprised when the cat let me pet it. On the other hand, there have been other visits where the cat was just as shy around me as everyone else.

- My neighbour's dog had puppies and I went for a visit. First she barked at me, to defend her pups, but once they gave me instructions to let her smell my hands etc. she was okay. I then sat down and petted her, and apparently I petted her in exactly the right way, cause she blissfully lay down and enjoyed the caresses. When one of her puppies bumped into her while playing, interrupting the petting, she scowled at it. Then lay her head back on my lap.

- On a farm I used to visit, I would walk around feeding the cats. One woman commented that the shyest cats would approach me at these times. Although I personally would say it's just cause of the food.

Times I was bad with animals: (included here to keep our feet on the ground)
- When I was like 6 or 7, I went shopping with my mom and there was a dog tied up outside, who was angry and barking, occasionally jumping up and down. I laughed cause I thought he was funny, and he kept barking at me, jumping up and down some more, till mom said "Stop it, your laughing is making him angry." so I stopped.

Yeah, with a lot of pet cats. And one cheetah, at the zoo.

I knew an autistic person who constantly claimed to have a way with animals. But they always pushed the limit and did things the animal was uncomfortable with to prove they could do it. It was profoundly disrespectful. If an animal got mad the person would giggle and say the animal was just playful. But the person really had this massive ego trip going. They did the same ego thing with claiming to be able to totally understand nonverbal people autistic or otherwise. Including if I became temporarily unable to type the person would start claiming that other people were bothering me when they weren't and stuff.

Because of that I am really hesitant to say anything about being broadly good with animals. I don't want to deceive myself into thinking they all like me if they're really just barely holding back from mauling me the way they were around that person. I have had a lot of good experiences with cats but there will always be miscommunication even among two very close friends from different species and after seeing a person really abuse the "good with animals" thing I don't ever want to get anywhere close to doing the same.

We have a "family" dog that is really my dog. Seriously, if I'm not in the room, he'll come search for me even if the kids are offering treats or toys.

Unfortunately, other animals seem more neutral. I'd just love if butterflies or birds came nearer.

I do know that the bond with my dog is so strong because of the AS though. When everyone in the world is hard to figure out, it's wonderful that he is so simple -- give me food, give me love, let me out, take me to the park. I can get all that and I immediately relax when it's just the two of us....

Animal attachment topic

I like all animals, but cats are my favourite. I find dogs a bit clingy, so I prefer to visit them rather than have my own. After the death of my Sammy, I would not get another, I could not.

All the stray cats in my neighborhood love to follow me for some reason.

I once stayed at my cousin's house for a few weeks. He had two really aggressive German shepherds that bit just about anyone but a few people that touched them. I walked up to the dogs and they quit barking. I patted both of them effortlessly. It was a shocking moment for me.

I'm pretty popular with cats and dogs (with a few exceptions). Usually though what seals the deal is food. Feed any animal and it will be your friend for life.

I kinda get disgusted with how some people treat animals. There was an auction house in town. It went out of business a couple years ago but it had two cats. One of the cats really liked me and would curl up in my lap when i was testing out the sofas. One time during an auction, some old guy who I swear to god was a carbon copy of Karl Marx was sitting on a rather wide sofa chair. The arms of the chair were VERY wide. Like, lots of room for a cat to sit on. Sophie the cat jumped onto the arm of this chair this guy was sitting on and he immediately swept his arm across the arm of the chair knocking Sophie off. Boy was I pissed and told the manager of the Auction house, since that's his cat. He said "Yeah we're not going to let that guy in here again if that's how he's going to treat my cat."

Animals love me, but I also happen to carry treats on hand. I usually carry dog and cat treats, or bring seed to the city park and feed birds. The dog treats are very handy, my route to work passes by a dog kennel where I volunteered for the summer as a child. I love dogs and cats and birds and lizards... Though I don't like fish, unless they come pre-battered and ready to bake. Mmmm, fish sticks.

One thing that occurred to me is that because we tend to have varying levels of sociability ourselves, we're more tolerant of other people's and animal's sociability levels. Most NT's with high sociability levels feel rejected if it's not reciprocated. If a child or animal is shy or standoffish, my attitude is when they're ready they'll come around rather than being offended and tense up. I also tend to have a "live and let live attitude" and I don't have a big presence. I often can almost walk up to the wild rabbits in the neighborhood and when they do run off it's a half-hearted run. It's like because I don't have a social need to be the center of attention, I'm better able to be a part of the rest of the world, children and animals seem to pick up on this.

I don't think that animals view us in terms of diagnosis... but they can definitely tell who is a gentle soul who will not hurt them or scare them, and they can often sense a person who will appreciate them and be comforted by them. I think probably a lot of aspies fit that description, and therefore are loved by animals!
- Nicki

Animals generally seem to take a liking to me too, but not always. I have met many animals who walk away when they see me, even cats (my favourite type of animals). But these particular animals have been extremely shy in general (a good example is deers, they just hate anything that moves), and the shy cats I'm thinking of are shy and distant even towards their owners. However, I have yet to experience an animal who likes me worse than other humans, with one exception (mentioned in the last paragraph).

I remember once, I visited a family who had a huge Rotweiler which really did not like people (they had been urged to put it to death on several occasions). But the first time it saw me, it approached me and put its head gently against me. One of the owners had actually started running to stop the dog from biting me, and was already about to start apologizing on the dog's behalf, until she realized that there was no problem at all. They were all shocked. I met the dog several times after that, and it was always calm and very affectionate.

My worst experience was a very strange cat, which belonged to a former friend of mine. There was something fundamentally wrong with that cat. It had been severely ill-treated by a man while very little, and hated all humans after that, except its owner. And I'm not talking about a shy cat, it actually hissed at everyone who came by (including me), and even attacked me on several occasions. After a few years, it even started turning on its owner, and was put down. I can't help but feeling that there was something worse than just a rough childhood for that cat.

I've always been told that animals like me more than they do other people. And they do, I don't know why, but I'm sure it has something to do with the way I treat them more like friends and less like objects.

Our dog, for example, she's always liked me more than others, and there's never been any reason reason for her to do this, although I do give her more freedom than the others (letting her inside, off the lead while walking etc.)