Autism, animals, & pet ownership

If you have a pet, you’re probably very familiar with the joys and emotional support they offer. But do autistic people experience a deeper connection with animals? In this article, I look at the research on pet ownership, our emotional bonds with animals, anthropomorphism, and species bias.

Pet ownership

A study from 2022 found that autistic adults were equally attached to their pets as neurotypicals but were less likely to own them, even though pet ownership is associated with better mental health outcomes.^[1]‘They ask no questions and pass no criticism’: A mixed-methods study exploring pet ownership in autism (Atherton et al., 2022)

Anecdotally, it seems the lower prevalence of pet ownership among autistics could be due to the idea that taking care of a pet is a great responsibility and perhaps too burdensome. Just yesterday, I saw an autistic woman post that she had to hold back on wanting to start an aquarium, as she is already dealing with burnout. I understand this sentiment, because when I’m not doing well, I don’t clean my fish and turtle tanks as frequently as I should.

Having said that, I do take pleasure in looking at the colorful fish swimming around, interacting with the turtle as I enter the kitchen, and talking with, hugging, and kissing our little Pluto. I mean, look at him! Such a kissable little face!

Although of course it takes some effort and responsibility to take care of an animal, they can offer companionship and substitute people as a compensatory mechanism for social contact.^[2]‘They ask no questions and pass no criticism’: A mixed-methods study exploring pet ownership in autism (Atherton et al., 2022)

Also, taking your dog for a walk can be relaxing and urge you to engage in some physical activity, which obviously has its benefits as well. Although lately, Pluto refuses to walk unless we’re on the way home. Seriously—I have to drag him along, but once we turn to go back home, he starts running! I guess dragging him along also gives me a workout, but it’s not a good look!

Okay, if you’re not a pet owner, I probably didn’t give you the best sale pitch right there. But research shows that pet owners reported greater life satisfaction than non-pet owners. Beyond that, the following themes emerged:^[3]‘They ask no questions and pass no criticism’: A mixed-methods study exploring pet ownership in autism (Atherton et al., 2022)

Let me illustrate each theme with some quotes from some of the autistic pet owners of the research:^[4]‘They ask no questions and pass no criticism’: A mixed-methods study exploring pet ownership in autism (Atherton et al., 2022)

Pets with benefits

Dog owners in particular can count on some physical activity from walking their dog:

She gets me a little bit of exercise sometimes because I go out walking with her and sometimes like especially in lockdown at the start, I didn’t really want to leave the house at all … But having to walk a dog allows me to go out a little bit more. And now I go out quite a lot and I just go out for runs actually now and I also walk her.

For many pet owners, pets also take care of their owners—for instance, by allowing them to calm down in moments of stress:

I could be borderline having a complete meltdown over something, but if I catch it at the right time, I can go sit down with Teddy or Jonah my other cat and just stay with them for a few minutes. And while it won’t get rid of it entirely, it will bring it to a controllable level.

Many pet owners indicated being able to use their pets to discuss their problems—helping them come up with a clear response to an issue they were struggling with, or helping them regulate their emotions:

I think the times that I was anxious when I was a teenager and I had an animal, it went away very quickly. And I was able to bounce that off them and almost have a conversation with them in my head. I focused on them rather than the problem.

Tactile stimulation can also offer benefits. For instance, pet owners discussed how the weight of a pet, and the sensation of touching fur or even scales was soothing in and of itself:

I stop crying because she calms me down by stroking her. And then she usually licks my hands, and, I know it sounds gross, but it’s actually really satisfying. … [her tongue] has a nice texture to it. So, she basically licks my hands and my arms and then and then that calms me down, and then I stroke her at the same time. And then I stop crying, and then I’m okay.

Pets as a social alternative

Pets also provide an alternative way to experience social interaction that is free from the stresses that come with human contact:

All the situations that make autistics uncomfortable don’t exist with animals—they’re gone. No awkward conversation, no unpredictable events, and it’s an easy environment; it’s an easy situation where you don’t have to worry about anything.

Interacting with animals also allows autistic people to drop the mask they often use in the presence of neurotypicals, and the lack of judgment from animals allows for stress-free communication, which is often experienced as comforting and empowering:

There’s something about the fact that they are not the same species which is helpful. Because an animal is not going ‘doesn’t she know that you have to hold eye contact?’ A cat doesn’t like eye contact. So, they’re not watching you trip over the social rules.

Pets also allow autistic people to see themselves in their pets, and to see themselves as valuable social partners who could make a difference in their lives by taking care of them:

I basically realized that all cats are autistic, and I can’t describe how much I relate to them. They’re very hypersensitive to certain senses and hyposensitive to others. They’re happy to be completely solitary animals but can get very close to specific people that they trust and are very, very loyal to them. They absolutely thrive off routine and don’t like their environment changing. They’re very quiet generally. And also, I think most people misunderstand them and don’t communicate well with them because they communicate and show love in a very different way.

Pets as a social lubricant

Pets can also be a way to communicate with others; not only can your pet elicit others to communicate with you, but they can provide a set script that allow for easier interaction with others.

In the book ‘Autism as Context Blindness’, Peter Vermeulen describes how autistic people have a reduced ability to discern context, but that certain situations such as a restaurant comes with a set of conventions, scripts, and expectations (waiters, a food menu, a certain order to the dishes being brought out, etc.) that allow autistic people to know what to expect and how to respond, whereas more dynamic, unexpected, and ambiguous situations require much more cognitive effort and adaptability to correctly discern context and respond appropriately.^[5]Autism as Context Blindness (Vermeulen, 2012)

All this to say, that just like with the restaurant example, entering social situations with your pet can provide a pre-established context and social scripts you can use.

[When you are with the pet] it’s something to talk about. It’s very clear what you’re supposed to do, the rules are very, very clear. You meet on the walk. You say, “Hello Rover, how nice to see you! How are you? Yes, isn’t Sadie beautiful?” You chat for five minutes at the most and then you’re away. It’s not demanding.

If you do feel the situation gets too demanding or overwhelming, your pet also gives you an easy out.

I think also it’s quite useful as you’ve got an excuse to sort of bailout. You just say that the dog needs to go outside or you need to take the dog home or whatever, and it’s quite an easy way out…. If it’s too crowded somewhere, it’s an excuse to say ‘The dog wants to go home,’ when really, it’s me.

Barriers & breakthroughs to pet ownership

But caring for a pet can also be a big responsibility, so you have to commit and may even need to make certain sacrifices. Some of the barriers to pet ownership were financial and included issues with housing and the cost of pet ownership:

It’s not really an option [for me]. It’s not viable. I mean, [my husband and I] live in rented flats, so, we wouldn’t be allowed to have any pets even if I wanted some.

Some autistic people were worried that aspects of their autistic traits might impede their ability to care for a pet responsibly:

I feel I have black-and-white thinking and a lot of indifference; where I think nothing matters at the moment, and I just don’t care about anything. And because of that, I don’t feel like I would be fit to have a pet on a permanent basis.

But compromises can be made as well. For instance, instead of a larger dog, you can keep smaller pets like cats, rodents, or birds that are more manageable:

My lifestyle doesn’t really fit the dog. So, that’s why I have two cats. Because if I’m away all day when I’m working then they are company for each other. I wouldn’t do it to a dog.

Mental health benefits

A study from 2021 found several associations between mental health and dog ownership specifically:^[6]Understanding the impact of dog ownership on autistic adults: implications for mental health and suicide prevention (Barcelos et al., 2021)

• 16.7% reported that their dogs prevented them from taking their own lives; their dog’s affection and the need to care for the animal were given as some of the major reasons
• Emotions/moods and life functioning were predominantly improved through close dog–owner interactions (e.g., cuddling, walking, dog’s presence)
• Life functioning was particularly enhanced by routine-like activities (e.g., feeding the animal, walking)
• However, a decrease in well-being was linked to dog behavior problems, dog poor health/death, and obligations to the dog

Despite some negative associations, dog ownership was found to improve well-being and assist suicide prevention in autistic people.^[7]Understanding the impact of dog ownership on autistic adults: implications for mental health and suicide prevention (Barcelos et al., 2021)

A study from 2015 looked into the impact of dog ownership on family functioning in families with autistic children who recently acquired a dog, and found that compared to non-dog owners:^[8]Pet Dogs Improve Family Functioning and Reduce Anxiety in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Wright et al., 2015)

• Family functioning significantly improved over time (reduced family weaknesses and increased strengths)
• Anxiety scores reduced by a greater percentage, in particular in the following domains:
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (26% greater decrease)
  • Panic attack and agoraphobia (24%)
  • Social phobia (22%)
  • Separation anxiety (22%)

Interestingly, a 2020 study that looked into the benefits of pet ownership in families with autistic children found that:^[9]Exploring Human–Companion Animal Interaction in Families of Children with Autism (Carlisle, 2020)

• Parents with lower incomes perceived more benefits of companion animals
• Children of parents with lower incomes were more strongly bonded with their pets
• Parents owning both a dog and a cat perceived more benefits than those with only a dog or cat
• Dog owners perceived more benefits than cat owners
• Parents who perceived their pets as providing more benefits experienced less stress

A 2019 study also found that seeing your pet as a family member can:^[10]We Are Family: Viewing Pets as Family Members Improves Wellbeing (McConnell, Lloyd, & Humphrey, 2019)

• Improve perceptions of socially supportive traits
• Increase well-being

The study also provided evidence for the mediating role of socially supportive anthropomorphism. I will discuss anthropomorphism more broadly in the next section.^[11]We Are Family: Viewing Pets as Family Members Improves Wellbeing (McConnell, Lloyd, & Humphrey, 2019)

And a 2017 study showed that adolescents who took more responsibility for their pets exhibited fewer depressive symptoms,^[12]Social-emotional adjustment and pet ownership among adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (Ward et al., 2017) which I think is mediated by the human–animal bond, as an increase in responsibility for your pet necessarily means spending more time with them, and experiencing all the aforementioned benefits.

But while pet ownership is related to a higher quality of life in autistic adults in particular, the authors of the 2022 study from the previous section say it’s not necessarily suggested that autistic people should automatically adopt pets—especially in light of the aforementioned barriers to pet ownership.^[13]‘They ask no questions and pass no criticism’: A mixed-methods study exploring pet ownership in autism (Atherton et al., 2022)

But counterpoint: Look at the little helper below, driving our luggage to our hotel room in Montreal. He probably received a treat as a tip after his hard work.

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to animals, or even inanimate objects, events, or deities. Research shows that autistic people tend to anthropomorphize more in general, including objects and events. But let’s look at how we relate to animals specifically.

One study from 2023 found some interesting things:^[14]Autism, pets, and the importance of seeing human (Atherton, Piovesan, & Cross, 2023)

• Anthropomorphism was found to be as common among autistic pet owners as in neurotypicals
• But autistic pet owners reported greater loneliness, and were more likely to substitute pets for people
• Neurotypical pet owners rated pets more highly on physical, non-anthropomorphic traits (e.g., muscular, active, lethargic);
• While autistic pet owners were more likely to rate pets equally between physical and anthropomorphic traits (e.g., ‘jealous,’ ‘creative,’ and ‘thoughtful’)
• Anthropomorphism and connection to nature were found to be positively correlated with autistic traits

I find it fascinating to see differences that neurotypical pet owners are more focused on physical attributes, while autistic pet owners focus on physical and anthropomorphic traits equally. This seems to track with my own experience. I don’t know why, but I quite regularly mention our dog Pluto’s mental states—or rather, the mental states I imagine him having, or joke about having. Natalie and I often spoke of his intelligence and empathy before the steroids he was on for a year messed with his brain. But in jest, I would also attribute genius-level intelligence to him, imagine him as a deep thinker with an elaborate dog philosophy (maybe dog ontology specifically?), and I sometimes call him our little caninestein, after Albert Einstein.

So while I’m not always super serious when making reference to his cognition (dognition, really), I find myself often attributing human traits and behaviors to him. I think this is also reflected in how I call him a ‘little guy’; and Natalie has been calling him ‘dude’ lately.

In the table below, you can see the findings of the 2023 study (I formatted the higher numbers in bold so you can quickly note the difference).

I think the differences are not actually that big. But what I found interesting is that while the range of anthropomorphism went just 9 points higher in autistic pet owners, the range of attribution of physical traits went 45 points higher among autistics, and the lower bound was 75 (as opposed to 0 in neurotypicals). So it seems autistic people are more likely to attribute states to their pets in general; although neurotypicals have a higher median for physical attribution, meaning they still attribute more physical traits to their pets than we do.

Species bias

So we’ve seen that pet ownership offers autistic people a myriad of benefits, and we looked at how autistic people relate to animals differently. But do autistic people prefer animals over humans? I don’t think there is a straightforward answer, but I would like to cover a few papers that seem tangentially related to that question.

A study from 2020 showed that while social attention in autistic children is reduced both in humans and in animals, they allocated significantly more attention to animal faces and their eye regions—and lesser attention to the animal mouths—when compared to human faces. So clearly, autistic children have a preference for observing regions more associated with neurotypical prosocial contact in animals.^[15]Do Animals Engage Greater Social Attention in Autism? An Eye Tracking Analysis (Valiyamattam et al., 2020) Put another way, I suspect eye contact with animals is less anxiety-provoking, in part because animals don’t judge. Although the study doesn’t directly prove this to be the case, I do think it’s corroborated by some of the sentiments expressed by autistic adults when it comes to animal contact.

Although a funny counterpoint; sometimes when Pluto stares at me, I joke that he has judging eyes. I’m joking of course; I don’t think he has the intellectual depth to judge me. But if anything, it’s more evidence of anthropomorphization.

We also see a preference in general responsiveness to animals over people, as autistic children were found to interact most frequently and for longest with the dog, followed by a person, and then the objects.^[16]Preference for, and Responsiveness to, People, Dogs and Objects in Children with Autism (Prothmann, Ettrich, & Prothmann, 2009) Although to be fair, this study lacked a control group, so we might very well see the same preference in neurotypical children. Dogs are fun for kids, after all. Having said that, it’s thought that animals—and specifically dogs—might make their behavioral intentions more easily understandable to autistic people because they do not communicate both verbally and non-verbally.^[17]The use of therapy animals with individuals with autism spectrum disorders (Grandin, Fine, & Bowers, 2010)

Some autistic people do report understanding and feeling more connected with animals than humans. Among them is Temple Grandin, who has an image-based cognitive style that she thinks is comparable to how animals think.^[18]Thinking the Way Animals Do: Unique insights from a person with a singular understanding (Grandin, 1997) | Kingtungsten Or rather, it’s said that animals think in terms of making associations, which resonates with Grandin as she creates rapid visual associations. The fear or startle response to high-pitched noises is another similarity between animals and (at least some) autistic people.

I don’t know if we really do show more similarities with other animals than neurotypicals do. But autistic people do often resonate with animals, and a commonly reported sentiment is that animals register as safe and comforting—well, some animals, anyway—on account of their lack of judgment and their drive to seek connection, whereas humans may be more hesitant to connect, or require much more elaborate and sophisticated conventions in order to establish a deep connection.

At least for me, connecting with animals often feels effortless; whereas human friends are hard to come by.