Animal Intelligence: Sarah Platto of Human Animal Interaction Service

Doctor Sarah Platto was working with dolphins in a Red Sea research facility when she had the idea to create Human Animal Interaction Service (HAIS). Nowadays she helps families and their pets live in harmony using her skills as a veterinarian and animal psychologist. Agenda met up with Platto to learn a few new tricks and how to apply them with our human counterparts.

What is the biggest problem you see in human-animal relationships?
Many people forget that animals have their own dignity. Urbanites consider their relationship with their pets to be one of caretaking, not a reciprocal partnership. This kind of relationship is one-sided, selfish, unrealistic, and filled with dysfunctional dynamics that distort the owner’s perception of the dog, and vice versa.

One of the goals of HAIS is to help people remember how to interact with domestic animals. In the past, animals and humans lived side by side. But as human society became increasingly urbanized, we have forgotten what it means to live and work with animals on a daily basis. So what I do is to help families integrate dogs and cats into their daily routines.

And how does this affect what you do with the animals? During my training sessions I teach pet owners not how to control their dogs, but how to live together with them, how to interact with them, what to give to them, and what to receive from them in return.

You’ve done a lot of research on animal behavior, particularly regarding dolphins and their interaction with humans. What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned?
When you study the dynamics of human-animal interaction and you analyze the behaviors of the animals towards human beings, you realize that animals make space for humans in their worlds. What this means is that the animals accept the humans into their social networks.

This is important because most animal-related accidents result from miscommunication, not from lack of acceptance. Each species interprets messages using its own communication system. You can see this among human beings, too. It’s not enough to learn the language of a country; you really need to understand the roots of the interaction among individuals. When individuals apply the communication pattern of their own culture with people of a different culture, the results can be disastrous.

What is the best trick to teach the humans in your life?
People ask me: do you use the same techniques on your son and husband that you use to train dogs? My answer is: yes! Especially for all you women out there with “alpha males” for husbands: hit them on the head with a big stick! That’s what I do with my husband at least. I am joking! (laughs) I often tell my clients that the same training techniques they are learning in my courses will be useful one day when they have children, and they look at me astonished. But it is true! You can use these communication techniques in human relationships as well, and you’ll immediately see improvements in your communications with the people around you.

Instead of getting frustrated or angry with your children when they do not want to listen to you, you can apply a “time out,” a moment where you completely ignore them. This is what a female dog does with her puppies, and you can see the effect it has. Nobody really invented techniques like positive reinforcement. These methods have been with man for centuries, and in the nature since animals and men have shared this earth. Even though people want to believe that we are different from animals, the reality is that we respond to the same rules.

Article from Agenda, issue 68, Dec 2-Dec 15. To read more from the most recent issue of Agenda, download the PDF here. To find a copy, contact our distribution department at distribution@agendabeijing.com with an idea of where you work, live or play and we'll tell you where you can find one near you.