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Do animals have a high affinity for you?

Pariah Dog

Pariah Dog

Well-Known Member
I wasn't sure what area to put this in so I'll make it off topic.

For whatever reason, animals gravitate to me much more so then they do to most people. Dogs, cats, birds, it doesn't seem to matter much. I've known of dogs that are hostile to most people who are warm to me. My boss' dog was one of them but she was trying to lick my face on first meeting while she scares others away with her deep booming bark. Cats not usually interested in people will try to sit on my lap and paw at my chest. I've had parrots land on me or step on my fingers while they would bite others. And often wild birds will let me get very close or come up to me in curiosity.

I just thought of this thread as I'm sitting outside on a patio. Just an hour ago A sick and dying sparrow which was being eaten by horse flies came toward me as if to ask for help. One eye was seriously infected looking. I had seen this bird earlier today looking unwell. Now it couldnt fly anymore and came awkwardly hopping my way. I put it very quickly out of it's misery with a shovel. Little bird hurts no more.

I've never heard anything about it before but does anyone know of a correlation between aspergers and a connection to animals?
 
I was going to mention I don't have any pets at the moment. I had a budgie that now unfortunately lives with my ex.
 
I don't have any pets, but grew up on a farm so we had lots of animals and pets. I loved animals for the most part (sometimes the farm animals get cranky or are stubborn). I had a feeling they gravitated to me a little more than most people. I always felt I could relate to what an animal was feeling and feel empathy with them more than humans. That may sound bad, but I'd say it was more the expression of those feelings than the feelings themselves that were different. I liked that I could hug them whenever I wanted to and also that I wasn't expected to communicate with them with words.
 
mw2530 said:
I don't have any pets, but grew up on a farm so we had lots of animals and pets. I loved animals for the most part (sometimes the farm animals get cranky or are stubborn). I had a feeling they gravitated to me a little more than most people. I always felt I could relate to what an animal was feeling and feel empathy with them more than humans. That may sound bad, but I'd say it was more the expression of those feelings than the feelings themselves that were different. I liked that I could hug them whenever I wanted to and also that I wasn't expected to communicate with them with words.
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I also like not being expected to communicate to animals with words. I like how animals are for the most part very direct and don't play games and be decieving like humans. It's well recognized that animals can sense things that science can not explain any way they would be able to know it. I sometimes wonder if they can somehow very quickly sense in a way that would be super natural to us, that I will be a safe and trustworthy being toward them. I don't know, just wildly speculating.

I once joked to a friend making a referance to the fallout series of games that if I pointed a gun at a grizzly bear it would just walk away. She then said the bear would probably come over and try to snuggle with me. :p
 
Dogs and cats really love me, although my mum is the real dog whisperer. I've never seen a dog that didn't feel instantly connected with my mum.
I do think that most animals feel some sort of connection with me though. I have always been good with animals, they have always gravitated towards me, and when I was in school other children used to tease me and call me a "nature nerd."
I grew up with a lot of animals around and I think animals and I really understand each other on some level. Basically- animals like me, people don't.
 
Animals like me too. I wonder if it has something to do with Aspies. I'm pretty sure I think more like dogs do than most people. Perhaps many of us do.

I guess I've always been this way. Once, in my youth, I was being shown a machine shop where I was applying for a job. The shop dog looked like he was half wolf and half grizzly bear. I just went up to him, let him sniff my hand, and started petting him. I had no idea that the dog was considered to be viscous and most people cannot approach him. Another time, very recently, two packs of coyotes had a fight and one of the coyotes lay dying on my doorstep. I guess he just knew I would end his misery. When I'm scuba diving fish and turtles and stuff just come right up to me (not all do, but many do) and let me take their picture. When dogs run away from home they come to my house.
 
Happens to me too. Animals seek me out, and are calm in my presence. Interestingly, my mom and my grandfather are the same. I've always wondered whether it's something about our smell, or more about our disposition. What interests me most is that my grandfather does not get along with people at all, but I swear he could probably make an alligator feel cuddly.
 
My new Aspie friend and I were discussing this very topic last week. We both can tell animals are drawn to us. I too grew up with many animals around me. And some of them did not take to other people, but, with me they were calm. Like my Boa that sat wrapped around the chair arm with me but would try to attack anyone else that came into the house. Dogs were the same. See them go after other people, with me they were fine. Even my pet frogs I have now expect to be hand fed and given a pat on the head or jump onto my hand and want a walk about around the pool looking at everything then I take them back to their area and they jump off.
Another Aspie I just met was talking about animals and said Tesla felt he had a connection with birds in particular. So do I. Wild woodstorks that won't go near anyone else come to me wanting to be fed or read to.
Yep, that's right. I used to have a gather around time when a family or five storks would sit in a circle around me and I'd read Edgar Allen Poe stories to them.
A falcon that would sit on a light pole and watch me when outside came 'home' when someone shot her.
I found her huddled
TarponMis_001.jpg
against the house by the garage door when I came home one night, bled out, near death. I stroked her head as she died.
I've raised baby birds fallen out their nests with the help of the mother. Put them in a box, bring them in at night, sit them outside in the morning and the mother would stay with it and feed it. I've been called the Bird Whisperer. I think the animals are attracted to us as most Aspies are to them. There is an unspoken connection.
Picture is of 'Baby Fuzzer', one of the woodstorks that likes Poe stories. :rolleyes:
 
Did Baby Fuzzer also like Poe's poems? Such as The Raven, perhaps?

I had three young red-tail hawk chicks that used to come and sit down next to me down by my creek. Their nest was in the trees above. At the same place my dog and I would play catch with her ball while about 20 feet away, just on the other side of the creek, mama bobcat would be watching her three kittens play (no, the hawks were not there at the same time). I have had bobcats walk right past me several times and had a coyote pup walk up to me and sit down in front of me. I thought he wanted to move in with me. When we had a severe drought I had the only spring for miles and the coyotes and bobcats would have to drink from it (no, not at the same time ;) ) Sometimes I would see one heading for the water hole. It would look at me and I would say "it's OK, go ahead. My dogs are way over there." I would be referring to two different dogs who were a little less patient with the wild animals, however they would allow them to get a drink before they chased them.
 
I have a huge affinity with animals, especially dogs; I have two lovely doodles who go with me everywhere (I work from home). Outdoors, my dogs provide me with the confidence I cannot muster by myself - they are 'people magnets' which is both good and bad depending on my mood and how talkative I am. (I have hidden behind trees to avoid people on my 'bad' days:p).

I can never ever relax, or just be myself around people, but around my dogs, I can be myself without judgement or ridicule and they accept me for who I am. Overall, what you see is what you get - with dogs especially. With my dogs I find I can ditch my "personality pack" - pretending to be 'normal' is so exhausting..

As an infant (and while growing up) I used to snuggle up with the family dogs for comfort. I was drawn to their nonjudgmental acceptance of me, even at a very young age, and subsequently I have never been without dogs (and cats) throughout my adulthood. I feel a huge connection with dogs, where with humans I never could and never can, I also have overwhelming empathy for animals.

And yes, animals have a huge affinity for me, I am like the Pied Piper Of Hamlet when it comes to animals of any kind.
 
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I've been told several times that all dogs "seem to know me." I feel a lot more comfortable with animals versus people.
 
SusanLR said:
My new Aspie friend and I were discussing this very topic last week. We both can tell animals are drawn to us. I too grew up with many animals around me. And some of them did not take to other people, but, with me they were calm. Like my Boa that sat wrapped around the chair arm with me but would try to attack anyone else that came into the house. Dogs were the same. See them go after other people, with me they were fine. Even my pet frogs I have now expect to be hand fed and given a pat on the head or jump onto my hand and want a walk about around the pool looking at everything then I take them back to their area and they jump off.
Another Aspie I just met was talking about animals and said Tesla felt he had a connection with birds in particular. So do I. Wild woodstorks that won't go near anyone else come to me wanting to be fed or read to.
Yep, that's right. I used to have a gather around time when a family or five storks would sit in a circle around me and I'd read Edgar Allen Poe stories to them.
A falcon that would sit on a light pole and watch me when outside came 'home' when someone shot her.
I found her huddledView attachment 35279 against the house by the garage door when I came home one night, bled out, near death. I stroked her head as she died.
I've raised baby birds fallen out their nests with the help of the mother. Put them in a box, bring them in at night, sit them outside in the morning and the mother would stay with it and feed it. I've been called the Bird Whisperer. I think the animals are attracted to us as most Aspies are to them. There is an unspoken connection.
Picture is of 'Baby Fuzzer', one of the woodstorks that likes Poe stories. :rolleyes:
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you have been given a wonderful gift
 
I adore being with animals and have always had lots of pets. Currently I am explaining my system of enjoying cats online (see signature) and writing a book about it.
 
Dogs and cats seem attracted to me as well as wild bird (one deciedex to land on me once and just sit their).

Babies are attracted to me and I guess people are animals really.
 
Animals seem to hate me, probably because I don't give them much attention and generally don't touch them. I have this look don't touch policy when it comes to animals unless there is a certain reason for it. I kind of treat most animals as farm creatures, being a country girl myself, so if it doesn't have a purpose then I'm not likely to waste time on it. But sometimes dogs are okay, so long as they aren't the drooling types...
 
me not being the sharpest tool in the box looked up all the variations of deciedex that Google suggested thought maybe theres another one that Google doesnt have, stumped
there tree pointed out the blaringly obvious :)
 
Streetwise said:
me not being the sharpest tool in the box looked up all the variations of deciedex that Google suggested thought maybe theres another one that Google doesnt have, stumped
there tree pointed out the blaringly obvious :)
Click to expand...

Typos tend to stop me in my tracks.
I have to figure out what the word is
or else......I don't understand.
 
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