WEBVTT

00:00:01.369 --> 00:00:05.373
Oliver was an extremely dashing,

00:00:05.373 --> 00:00:09.974
handsome, charming, and largely unstable male

00:00:09.974 --> 00:00:13.439
that I completely lost my heart to.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:16.240
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:16.240 --> 00:00:17.916
He was a Burmese Mountain Dog,

00:00:17.916 --> 00:00:21.189
and my ex-husband and I adopted him,

00:00:21.189 --> 00:00:22.978
and about six months in,

00:00:22.978 --> 00:00:25.422
we realized that he was a mess.

00:00:25.422 --> 00:00:27.962
He had such paralyzing separation anxiety

00:00:27.962 --> 00:00:29.638
that we couldn't leave him alone.

00:00:29.638 --> 00:00:32.776
Once, he jumped out of our third floor apartment.

00:00:32.776 --> 00:00:37.187
He ate fabric. He ate things, recyclables.

00:00:37.187 --> 00:00:38.952
He hunted flies that didn't exist.

00:00:38.952 --> 00:00:40.921
He suffered from hallucinations.

00:00:40.921 --> 00:00:44.115
He was diagnosed with a canine compulsive disorder

00:00:44.115 --> 00:00:47.501
and that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:47.501 --> 00:00:51.742
But like with humans,

00:00:51.742 --> 00:00:54.543
sometimes it's six months in

00:00:54.543 --> 00:00:56.580
before you realize that

00:00:56.580 --> 00:00:59.527
the person that you love has some issues.

00:00:59.527 --> 00:01:01.338
(Laughter)

00:01:01.338 --> 00:01:04.522
And most of us do not take the person we're dating

00:01:04.522 --> 00:01:07.238
back to the bar where we met them

00:01:07.238 --> 00:01:11.524
or give them back to the friend that introduced us,

00:01:11.524 --> 00:01:14.268
or sign them back up on Match.com.

00:01:14.268 --> 00:01:17.238
(Laughter)

00:01:17.238 --> 00:01:18.937
We love them anyway,

00:01:18.937 --> 00:01:20.723
and we stick to it,

00:01:20.723 --> 00:01:25.245
and that is what I did with my dog.

00:01:25.245 --> 00:01:28.947
And I was a — I'd studied biology.

00:01:28.947 --> 00:01:31.467
I have a Ph.D in the history of science

00:01:31.467 --> 00:01:33.132
from MIT,

00:01:33.132 --> 00:01:34.740
and had you asked me 10 years ago

00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:37.249
if a dog I loved, or just dogs generally,

00:01:37.249 --> 00:01:38.925
had emotions, I would have said yes,

00:01:38.925 --> 00:01:40.489
but I'm not sure I would have told you

00:01:40.489 --> 00:01:42.817
that they can also wind up with an anxiety disorder

00:01:42.817 --> 00:01:46.788
and a Prozac prescription and a therapist.

00:01:46.788 --> 00:01:50.624
But then, I fell in love, and I realized that they can,

00:01:50.624 --> 00:01:53.065
and actually trying to help my own dog

00:01:53.065 --> 00:01:55.864
overcome his panic and his anxiety,

00:01:55.864 --> 00:01:58.227
it just changed my life.

00:01:58.227 --> 00:02:00.454
It cracked open my world,

00:02:00.454 --> 00:02:03.131
and I spent the last seven years, actually,

00:02:03.131 --> 00:02:05.730
looking into this topic of
mental illness in other animals.

00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:07.485
Can they be mentally ill like people,

00:02:07.485 --> 00:02:10.094
and if so, what does it mean about us?

00:02:10.094 --> 00:02:13.199
And what I discovered is that I do believe

00:02:13.199 --> 00:02:14.819
they can suffer from mental illness,

00:02:14.819 --> 00:02:19.465
and actually looking and trying
to identify mental illness in them

00:02:19.465 --> 00:02:21.377
often helps us be better friends to them

00:02:21.377 --> 00:02:25.641
and also can help us better understand ourselves.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:25.641 --> 00:02:29.117
So let's talk about diagnosis for a minute.

00:02:29.117 --> 00:02:31.558
Many of us think that we can't know

00:02:31.558 --> 00:02:33.841
what another animal is thinking,

00:02:33.841 --> 00:02:35.709
and that is true,

00:02:35.709 --> 00:02:37.981
but any of you in relationships

00:02:37.981 --> 00:02:39.747
— at least this is my case —

00:02:39.747 --> 00:02:41.547
just because you ask someone that you with

00:02:41.547 --> 00:02:43.741
or your parent or your child how they feel

00:02:43.741 --> 00:02:45.811
doesn't mean that they can tell you.

00:02:45.811 --> 00:02:47.869
They may not have words to explain

00:02:47.869 --> 00:02:49.512
what it is that they're feeling,

00:02:49.512 --> 00:02:51.165
and they may not know.

00:02:51.165 --> 00:02:52.830
It's actually a pretty recent phenomenon

00:02:52.830 --> 00:02:54.596
that we feel that we have to talk to someone

00:02:54.596 --> 00:02:57.150
to understand their emotional distress.

00:02:57.150 --> 00:02:59.377
Before the early 20th century,

00:02:59.377 --> 00:03:01.987
physicians often diagnosed emotional distress

00:03:01.987 --> 00:03:05.385
in their patients just by observation.

00:03:05.385 --> 00:03:07.308
It also turns out that thinking about

00:03:07.308 --> 00:03:08.883
mental illness in other animals

00:03:08.883 --> 00:03:10.986
isn't actually that much of a stretch.

00:03:10.986 --> 00:03:12.719
Most mental disorders in the United States

00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:15.589
are fear and anxiety disorders,

00:03:15.589 --> 00:03:17.548
and when you think about it, fear and anxiety

00:03:17.548 --> 00:03:21.360
are actually really extremely
helpful animal emotions.

00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:24.600
Usually we feel fear and anxiety
in situations that are dangerous,

00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:26.197
and once we feel them,

00:03:26.197 --> 00:03:27.896
we then are motivated to move away

00:03:27.896 --> 00:03:29.707
from whatever is dangerous.

00:03:29.707 --> 00:03:34.736
The problem is when we begin to feel fear
and anxiety in situations that don't call for it.

00:03:34.736 --> 00:03:37.536
Mood disorders, too, may actually just be

00:03:37.536 --> 00:03:41.282
the unfortunate downside of being a feeling animal,

00:03:41.282 --> 00:03:44.207
and obsessive compulsive disorders also

00:03:44.207 --> 00:03:47.616
are often manifestations of
a really healthy animal thing

00:03:47.616 --> 00:03:50.676
which is keeping yourself clean and groomed.

00:03:50.676 --> 00:03:52.544
This tips into the territory of mental illness

00:03:52.544 --> 00:03:53.690
when you do things like

00:03:53.690 --> 00:03:56.293
compulsively over-wash your hands or paws,

00:03:56.293 --> 00:03:58.359
or you develop a ritual that's so extreme

00:03:58.359 --> 00:04:00.451
that you can't sit down to a bowl of food

00:04:00.451 --> 00:04:03.443
unless you engage in that ritual.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:03.443 --> 00:04:07.774
So for humans, we have "The
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual"

00:04:07.774 --> 00:04:09.901
which is basically an atlas

00:04:09.901 --> 00:04:12.634
of the currently agreed upon mental disorders.

00:04:12.634 --> 00:04:15.885
In other animals, we have YouTube.

00:04:15.885 --> 00:04:17.741
(Laughter)

00:04:17.741 --> 00:04:20.138
This is just one search I did for "OCD dog"

00:04:20.138 --> 00:04:21.926
but I encourage all of you

00:04:21.926 --> 00:04:25.267
to look at "OCD cat."

00:04:25.267 --> 00:04:28.271
You will be shocked by what you see.

00:04:28.271 --> 00:04:32.770
I'm going to show you just a couple examples.

00:04:32.770 --> 00:04:35.752
This is an example of shadow-chasing.

00:04:35.752 --> 00:04:38.778
I know, and it's funny and in some ways it's cute.

00:04:38.778 --> 00:04:42.343
The issue, though, is that dogs
can develop compulsions like this

00:04:42.343 --> 00:04:44.965
that they then engage in all day.

00:04:44.965 --> 00:04:46.237
So they won't go for a walk,

00:04:46.237 --> 00:04:47.891
they won't hang out with their friends,

00:04:47.891 --> 00:04:49.477
they won't eat.

00:04:49.477 --> 00:04:51.018
They'll develop fixations

00:04:51.018 --> 00:04:54.337
like chasing their tails compulsively.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:54.337 --> 00:04:57.858
Here's an example of a cat named Gizmo.

00:04:57.858 --> 00:05:00.074
He looks like he's on a stakeout

00:05:00.074 --> 00:05:01.615
— (Laughter) —

00:05:01.615 --> 00:05:04.664
but he does this for many, many, many hours a day.

00:05:04.664 --> 00:05:07.668
He just sits there and he will paw and paw and paw

00:05:07.668 --> 00:05:09.422
at the screen.

00:05:09.422 --> 00:05:11.729
This is another example of what's considered

00:05:11.729 --> 00:05:13.483
a stereotypic behavior.

00:05:13.483 --> 00:05:16.093
This is a sun bear at the
Oakland Zoo named Ting Ting.

00:05:16.093 --> 00:05:17.825
And if you just sort of happened upon this scene,

00:05:17.825 --> 00:05:19.456
you might think that Ting Ting

00:05:19.456 --> 00:05:21.099
is just playing with a stick,

00:05:21.099 --> 00:05:22.966
but Ting Ting does this all day,

00:05:22.966 --> 00:05:24.552
and if you pay close attention

00:05:24.552 --> 00:05:27.803
and if I showed you guys
the full half-hour of this clip,

00:05:27.803 --> 00:05:29.829
you'd see that he does the exact same thing

00:05:29.829 --> 00:05:31.978
in the exact same order, and he spins the stick

00:05:31.978 --> 00:05:34.508
in the exact same way every time.

00:05:34.508 --> 00:05:37.096
Other super-common behaviors that you may see,

00:05:37.096 --> 00:05:38.794
particularly in captive animals,

00:05:38.794 --> 00:05:43.204
are pacing stereotypes or swaying stereotypes,

00:05:43.204 --> 00:05:44.880
and actually, humans do this too,

00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:46.624
and in us, you know, we'll sway,

00:05:46.624 --> 00:05:48.401
we'll move from side to side.

00:05:48.401 --> 00:05:50.482
Many of us do this, and sometimes, you know,

00:05:50.482 --> 00:05:52.248
it's an effort to soothe ourselves,

00:05:52.248 --> 00:05:54.678
and I think in other animals
that is often the case too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:54.678 --> 00:05:56.714
But it's not just stereotypic behaviors

00:05:56.714 --> 00:05:58.480
that other animals engage in.

00:05:58.480 --> 00:06:00.258
This is Gigi. She's a gorilla that lives

00:06:00.258 --> 00:06:02.159
at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.

00:06:02.159 --> 00:06:04.127
She actually has a Harvard psychiatrist,

00:06:04.127 --> 00:06:05.849
and she's been treated for a mood disorder

00:06:05.849 --> 00:06:07.592
among other things.

00:06:07.592 --> 00:06:10.427
Many animals develop mood disorders.

00:06:10.427 --> 00:06:11.855
Lots of creatures

00:06:11.855 --> 00:06:13.610
— this horse is just one example —

00:06:13.610 --> 00:06:15.342
develop self-destructive behaviors.

00:06:15.342 --> 00:06:16.647
They'll gnaw on things

00:06:16.647 --> 00:06:18.503
or do other things that may also soothe them,

00:06:18.503 --> 00:06:20.201
even if they're self-destructive,

00:06:20.201 --> 00:06:21.878
which could be considered similar

00:06:21.878 --> 00:06:25.279
to the ways that some humans cut themselves.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:26.562
Plucking.

00:06:26.562 --> 00:06:30.319
Turns out, if you have fur or feathers or skin,

00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:32.294
you can pluck yourself compulsively,

00:06:32.294 --> 00:06:34.616
and some parrots actually have been studied

00:06:34.616 --> 00:06:37.964
to better understand [triplotomania?],
or compulsive plucking in humans,

00:06:37.964 --> 00:06:39.471
something that affects

00:06:39.471 --> 00:06:41.991
20 million Americans right now.

00:06:41.991 --> 00:06:43.509
Lab rats pluck themselves too.

00:06:43.509 --> 00:06:45.962
In them, it's called barbering.

00:06:45.962 --> 00:06:48.819
Canine veterans of conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan

00:06:48.819 --> 00:06:51.800
are coming back with what's
considered canine PTSD,

00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:54.512
and they're having a hard time reentering civilian life

00:06:54.512 --> 00:06:55.917
when they come back from deployments.

00:06:55.917 --> 00:06:58.403
They can be too scared to
approach men with beards

00:06:58.403 --> 00:07:01.396
or to hop into cars.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:01.396 --> 00:07:03.882
I want to be careful and be clear though.

00:07:03.882 --> 00:07:06.469
I do not think that canine PTSD

00:07:06.469 --> 00:07:09.360
is the same as human PTSD.

00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.835
But I also do not think that my PTSD

00:07:11.835 --> 00:07:13.500
is like your PTSD,

00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:16.632
or that my anxiety or that my sadness is like yours.

00:07:16.632 --> 00:07:18.337
We are all different.

00:07:18.337 --> 00:07:21.172
We also all have very different susceptibilities.

00:07:21.172 --> 00:07:24.693
So two dogs, raised in the same household,

00:07:24.693 --> 00:07:27.055
exposed to the very same things,

00:07:27.055 --> 00:07:30.959
one may develop, say, a
debilitating fear of motorcycles,

00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:33.907
or a phobia of the beep of the microwave,

00:07:33.907 --> 00:07:35.762
and another one is going to be just fine.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:35.762 --> 00:07:38.305
So one thing that people ask me pretty frequently:

00:07:38.305 --> 00:07:40.768
is this just an instance of humans

00:07:40.768 --> 00:07:42.557
driving other animals crazy?

00:07:42.557 --> 00:07:46.078
Or, is animal mental illness just
a result of mistreatment or abuse?

00:07:46.078 --> 00:07:47.619
And it turns out we're actually

00:07:47.619 --> 00:07:51.174
so much more complicated than that.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:51.174 --> 00:07:54.301
So one great thing that has happened to me

00:07:54.301 --> 00:07:57.080
is recently I published a book on this,

00:07:57.080 --> 00:08:01.355
and every day now that I open my email

00:08:01.355 --> 00:08:02.929
or when I go to a reading

00:08:02.929 --> 00:08:04.921
or even when I go to a cocktail party,

00:08:04.921 --> 00:08:06.822
people tell me their stories

00:08:06.822 --> 00:08:08.576
of the animals that they have met.

00:08:08.576 --> 00:08:11.096
And recently, I did a reading in California,

00:08:11.096 --> 00:08:13.690
and a woman raised her hand
after the talk and she said,

00:08:13.690 --> 00:08:17.396
"Dr. Braitman, I think my cat has PTSD."

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:17.396 --> 00:08:20.490
And I said, "Well, why? Tell me a little bit about it."

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:20.490 --> 00:08:23.909
So, Ping is her cat. She was a rescue,

00:08:23.909 --> 00:08:26.801
and she used to live with an elderly man,

00:08:26.801 --> 00:08:29.242
and one day the man was vacuuming

00:08:29.242 --> 00:08:31.727
and he suffered a heart attack, and he died.

00:08:31.727 --> 00:08:34.911
A week later, Ping was discovered in the apartment

00:08:34.911 --> 00:08:36.655
alongside the body of her owner,

00:08:36.655 --> 00:08:40.322
and the vacuum had been running the entire time.

00:08:40.322 --> 00:08:45.350
For many months, up to I think
two years after that incident,

00:08:45.350 --> 00:08:47.960
she was so scared she couldn't be in
the house when anyone was cleaning.

00:08:47.960 --> 00:08:50.086
She was quite literally a scaredy cat.

00:08:50.086 --> 00:08:52.089
She would hide in the closet.

00:08:52.089 --> 00:08:54.182
She was un-self-confident, and shaky,

00:08:54.182 --> 00:08:56.330
but with the loving support of her family,

00:08:56.330 --> 00:08:58.726
a lot of a time, and their patience,

00:08:58.726 --> 00:09:00.076
now, three years later,

00:09:00.076 --> 00:09:03.505
she's actually a happy, confident cat.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:03.505 --> 00:09:06.180
Another story of trauma and
recovery that I came across

00:09:06.180 --> 00:09:07.676
was actually a few years ago.

00:09:07.676 --> 00:09:10.196
I was in Thailand to do some research.

00:09:10.196 --> 00:09:13.380
I met a monkey named Boonlua,

00:09:13.380 --> 00:09:15.282
and when Boonlua was a baby,

00:09:15.282 --> 00:09:17.296
he was attacked by a pack of dogs,

00:09:17.296 --> 00:09:22.064
and they ripped off both of his legs and one arm,

00:09:22.064 --> 00:09:25.283
and Boonlua dragged himself to a monastery,

00:09:25.283 --> 00:09:26.834
where the monks took him in.

00:09:26.834 --> 00:09:29.815
They called in a veterinarian
who treated his wounds.

00:09:29.815 --> 00:09:31.660
Eventually, Boonlua wound up

00:09:31.660 --> 00:09:33.453
at an elephant facility,

00:09:33.453 --> 00:09:36.812
and the keepers really decided
to take him under their wing,

00:09:36.812 --> 00:09:38.185
and they figured out what he liked,

00:09:38.185 --> 00:09:39.804
which, it turns out, was mint Mentos

00:09:39.804 --> 00:09:43.281
and Rhinoceros beetles and eggs.

00:09:43.281 --> 00:09:46.453
But they worried because he
was social that he was lonely,

00:09:46.453 --> 00:09:48.078
and they didn't want to put
him in with another monkey,

00:09:48.078 --> 00:09:49.563
because they thought with just one arm,

00:09:49.563 --> 00:09:52.218
he wouldn't be able to defend himself or even play.

00:09:52.218 --> 00:09:54.704
And so they gave him a rabbit,

00:09:54.704 --> 00:09:57.517
and Boonlua was immediately a different monkey.

00:09:57.517 --> 00:09:59.499
He was extremely happy to be with this rabbit.

00:09:59.499 --> 00:10:01.779
They groomed each other,
they become close friends,

00:10:01.779 --> 00:10:04.482
and then the rabbit had bunnies,

00:10:04.482 --> 00:10:07.339
and Boonlua was even happier than he was before,

00:10:07.339 --> 00:10:09.589
and it had in a way given him

00:10:09.589 --> 00:10:11.434
a reason to wake up in the morning,

00:10:11.434 --> 00:10:13.188
and in fact it gave him such a reason to wake up

00:10:13.188 --> 00:10:15.191
that he decided not to sleep.

00:10:15.191 --> 00:10:19.049
He became extremely protective of these bunnies,

00:10:19.049 --> 00:10:20.748
and he stopped sleeping,

00:10:20.748 --> 00:10:22.379
and he would sort of nod off

00:10:22.379 --> 00:10:24.011
while trying to take care of them.

00:10:24.011 --> 00:10:25.833
In fact, he was so protective and so affectionate

00:10:25.833 --> 00:10:27.588
with these babies that the sanctuary

00:10:27.588 --> 00:10:29.950
eventually had to take them away from him

00:10:29.950 --> 00:10:31.885
because he was so protective, he was worried

00:10:31.885 --> 00:10:33.764
that their mother might hurt them.

00:10:33.764 --> 00:10:35.608
So after they were taken away, the sanctuary staff

00:10:35.608 --> 00:10:37.217
worried that he would fall into a depression,

00:10:37.217 --> 00:10:38.949
and so to avoid that,

00:10:38.949 --> 00:10:41.447
they gave him another rabbit friend.

00:10:41.447 --> 00:10:45.114
(Laughter)

00:10:45.114 --> 00:10:47.769
My official opinion is that
he does not look depressed.

00:10:47.769 --> 00:10:49.839
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:49.839 --> 00:10:53.821
So one thing that I would really like people to feel

00:10:53.821 --> 00:10:57.360
is that you really should feel empowered

00:10:57.360 --> 00:10:59.373
to make some assumptions

00:10:59.373 --> 00:11:01.196
about the creatures that you know well.

00:11:01.196 --> 00:11:02.996
So when it comes, you know, to your dog

00:11:02.996 --> 00:11:05.314
or your cat or maybe your one-armed monkey

00:11:05.314 --> 00:11:06.742
that you happen to know,

00:11:06.742 --> 00:11:10.667
if you think that they are traumatized or depressed,

00:11:10.667 --> 00:11:13.153
you're probably right.

00:11:13.153 --> 00:11:15.471
This is extremely anthropomorphic,

00:11:15.471 --> 00:11:18.464
or the assignation of human characteristics

00:11:18.464 --> 00:11:21.726
onto non-human animals or things.

00:11:21.726 --> 00:11:24.257
I don't think, though, that that's a problem.

00:11:24.257 --> 00:11:26.349
I don't think that we can not anthropomorphize.

00:11:26.349 --> 00:11:29.251
It's not as if you can take your
human brain out of your head

00:11:29.251 --> 00:11:31.355
and put it in a jar and then use it

00:11:31.355 --> 00:11:33.560
to think about another animal thinking.

00:11:33.560 --> 00:11:36.158
We will always be one animal wondering

00:11:36.158 --> 00:11:38.678
about the emotional experience of another animal.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:38.678 --> 00:11:41.671
So then the choice becomes, how
do you anthropomorphize well?

00:11:41.671 --> 00:11:43.931
Or do you anthropomorphize poorly?

00:11:43.931 --> 00:11:46.215
And anthropomorphizing poorly

00:11:46.215 --> 00:11:48.094
is all too common.

00:11:48.094 --> 00:11:50.242
(Laughter)

00:11:50.242 --> 00:11:52.886
It may include dressing your corgis
up and throwing them a wedding,

00:11:52.886 --> 00:11:55.272
or getting too close to exotic wildlife because

00:11:55.272 --> 00:11:57.408
you believe that you had a spiritual connection.

00:11:57.408 --> 00:11:59.546
There's all manner of things.

00:11:59.546 --> 00:12:03.112
Anthropomorphizing well, however, I believe is based

00:12:03.112 --> 00:12:06.014
on accepting our animal
similarities with other species

00:12:06.014 --> 00:12:08.637
and using them to make assumptions

00:12:08.637 --> 00:12:11.346
that are informed about other animals' minds

00:12:11.346 --> 00:12:12.516
and experiences,

00:12:12.516 --> 00:12:14.822
and there's actually an entire industry

00:12:14.822 --> 00:12:17.792
that is in some ways based
on anthropomorphizing well,

00:12:17.792 --> 00:12:20.953
and that is the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:20.953 --> 00:12:25.473
One in five Americans is currently
taking a psycho-pharmaceutical drug,

00:12:25.473 --> 00:12:28.128
from the anti-depressants
and anti-anxiety medications

00:12:28.128 --> 00:12:29.950
to the anti-psychotics.

00:12:29.950 --> 00:12:31.784
It turns out that we owe this

00:12:31.784 --> 00:12:34.157
entire psycho-pharmaceutical arsenal

00:12:34.157 --> 00:12:35.889
to other animals.

00:12:35.889 --> 00:12:38.399
These drugs were tested in non-human animals first,

00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:42.335
and not just for toxicity but for behavioral effects.

00:12:42.335 --> 00:12:45.519
The very popular anti-psychotic Thorazine

00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:49.265
first relaxed rats before it relaxed people.

00:12:49.265 --> 00:12:51.426
The anti-anxiety medication Librium

00:12:51.426 --> 00:12:55.599
was given to cats selected for
their meanness in the 1950s

00:12:55.599 --> 00:12:58.073
and made them into peaceable felines.

00:12:58.073 --> 00:13:02.066
And even anti-depressants
were first tested in rabbits.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:02.066 --> 00:13:05.104
Today, however, we are not just giving these drugs

00:13:05.104 --> 00:13:07.455
to other animals as test subjects,

00:13:07.455 --> 00:13:10.526
but they're giving them these drugs as patients,

00:13:10.526 --> 00:13:14.429
both in ethical and much less ethical ways.

00:13:14.429 --> 00:13:18.299
SeaWorld gives mother orcas
anti-anxiety medications

00:13:18.299 --> 00:13:20.943
when their calves are taken away.

00:13:20.943 --> 00:13:23.226
Many zoo gorillas have been given anti-psychotics

00:13:23.226 --> 00:13:25.532
and anti-anxiety medications.

00:13:25.532 --> 00:13:28.165
But dogs like my own Oliver

00:13:28.165 --> 00:13:31.404
are given anti-depressants and
some anti-anxiety medications

00:13:31.404 --> 00:13:33.047
to keep them from jumping out of buildings

00:13:33.047 --> 00:13:35.533
or jumping into traffic.

00:13:35.533 --> 00:13:38.402
Just recently, actually, a study came out in "Science"

00:13:38.402 --> 00:13:40.231
that showed that even crawdads

00:13:40.231 --> 00:13:42.905
responded to anti-anxiety medication.

00:13:42.905 --> 00:13:45.010
It made them braver, less skittish,

00:13:45.010 --> 00:13:49.780
and more likely to explore their environment.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:49.780 --> 00:13:52.508
It's hard to know how many
animals are on these drugs,

00:13:52.508 --> 00:13:55.602
but I can tell you that the
animal pharmaceutical industry

00:13:55.602 --> 00:13:57.390
is immense and growing,

00:13:57.390 --> 00:14:00.113
from seven billion dollars in 2011

00:14:00.113 --> 00:14:05.692
to a projected $9.25 billion by the year 2015.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:05.692 --> 00:14:09.899
Some animals are on these drugs indefinitely.

00:14:09.899 --> 00:14:13.774
Others, like one bonobo who lives in Milwaukee

00:14:13.774 --> 00:14:15.430
at the zoo there was on them

00:14:15.430 --> 00:14:17.511
until he started to save his Paxil prescription

00:14:17.511 --> 00:14:19.907
and then distribute it among the other bonobos.

00:14:19.907 --> 00:14:24.916
(Laughter) (Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:24.916 --> 00:14:27.805
More than psycho-pharmaceuticals, though,

00:14:27.805 --> 00:14:30.320
there are many, many, many other

00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:32.968
therapeutic interventions that help other creatures.

00:14:32.968 --> 00:14:35.049
And here is a place where I think actually

00:14:35.049 --> 00:14:37.772
that veterinary medicine can teach something

00:14:37.772 --> 00:14:39.458
to human medicine,

00:14:39.458 --> 00:14:41.348
which is, if you take your dog is, say,

00:14:41.348 --> 00:14:43.148
compulsively chasing his tail,

00:14:43.148 --> 00:14:44.926
into the veterinary behaviorist,

00:14:44.926 --> 00:14:48.042
their first action isn't to reach
for the prescription pad:

00:14:48.042 --> 00:14:50.686
it's to ask you about your dog's life.

00:14:50.686 --> 00:14:53.622
They want to know how often your dog gets outside.

00:14:53.622 --> 00:14:56.276
They want to know how much
exercise your dog is getting.

00:14:56.276 --> 00:14:57.761
They want to know how much social time

00:14:57.761 --> 00:15:00.079
with other dogs and other humans.

00:15:00.079 --> 00:15:02.390
They want to talk to you
about what sorts of therapies,

00:15:02.390 --> 00:15:04.905
largely behavior therapies,

00:15:04.905 --> 00:15:07.165
you've tried with that animal.

00:15:07.165 --> 00:15:09.562
Those are the things that
often tend to help the most,

00:15:09.562 --> 00:15:12.891
especially when combined with
psycho-pharmaceuticals.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:12.891 --> 00:15:15.344
The thing, though, I believe, that helps the most,

00:15:15.344 --> 00:15:17.301
particularly with social animals,

00:15:17.301 --> 00:15:20.759
is time with other social animals.

00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:24.347
In many ways, I feel like I became a service animal

00:15:24.347 --> 00:15:26.851
to my own dog,

00:15:26.851 --> 00:15:30.878
and I have seen parrots do it for people

00:15:30.878 --> 00:15:32.588
and people do it for parrots

00:15:32.588 --> 00:15:34.126
and dogs do it for elephants

00:15:34.126 --> 00:15:37.864
and elephants do it for other elephants.

00:15:37.864 --> 00:15:39.507
I don't know about you;

00:15:39.507 --> 00:15:41.217
I get a lot of internet forwards

00:15:41.217 --> 00:15:43.433
of unlikely animal friendships.

00:15:43.433 --> 00:15:47.030
I also think it's a huge part of Facebook,

00:15:47.030 --> 00:15:49.597
the monkey that adopts the cat

00:15:49.597 --> 00:15:54.693
or the great dane that adopted the orphaned fawn,

00:15:54.693 --> 00:15:57.237
or the cow that makes friends with the pig,

00:15:57.237 --> 00:16:01.173
and had you asked me eight,
nine years ago, about these,

00:16:01.173 --> 00:16:03.663
I would have told you that they
were hopelessly sentimental

00:16:03.663 --> 00:16:06.786
and maybe too anthropomorphic in the wrong way

00:16:06.786 --> 00:16:09.565
and maybe even staged, and what I can tell you now

00:16:09.565 --> 00:16:12.477
is that there is actually something to this.

00:16:12.477 --> 00:16:16.112
This is legit. In fact, some interesting studies

00:16:16.112 --> 00:16:18.418
have pointed to oxytocin levels

00:16:18.418 --> 00:16:20.634
which are a kind of bonding hormone

00:16:20.634 --> 00:16:23.075
that we release when we're having sex or nursing

00:16:23.075 --> 00:16:25.629
or around someone that we care for extremely,

00:16:25.629 --> 00:16:28.121
oxytocin levels raising in both humans and dogs

00:16:28.121 --> 00:16:29.515
who care about each other

00:16:29.515 --> 00:16:31.175
or who enjoy each others' company,

00:16:31.175 --> 00:16:33.484
and beyond that, other studies show that oxytocin

00:16:33.484 --> 00:16:35.620
raised even in other pairs of animals,

00:16:35.620 --> 00:16:39.635
so say in goats and dogs who were
friends and played with each other,

00:16:39.635 --> 00:16:43.684
their levels spiked afterwards.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:43.684 --> 00:16:46.451
I have a friend who really showed me that

00:16:46.451 --> 00:16:48.875
mental health is in fact a two-way street.

00:16:48.875 --> 00:16:52.874
His name is Lonnie Hodge,
and he's a veteran of Vietnam.

00:16:52.874 --> 00:16:55.496
When he returned, he started working

00:16:55.496 --> 00:16:58.139
with survivors of genocide and a lot of people

00:16:58.139 --> 00:16:59.917
who had gone through war trauma.

00:16:59.917 --> 00:17:02.571
And he had PTSD and also a fear of heights,

00:17:02.571 --> 00:17:04.079
because in Vietnam, he had been

00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:06.295
rappelling backwards out of helicopters

00:17:06.295 --> 00:17:08.050
over the skids,

00:17:08.050 --> 00:17:11.559
and he was given a service dog
named Gander, a Labradoodle,

00:17:11.559 --> 00:17:14.250
to help him with PTSD and his fear of heights.

00:17:14.250 --> 00:17:17.049
This is them actually on the first day that they met,

00:17:17.049 --> 00:17:19.502
which is amazing, and since then,

00:17:19.502 --> 00:17:21.267
they've spent a lot of time together

00:17:21.267 --> 00:17:25.517
visiting with other veterans
suffering from similar issues.

00:17:25.517 --> 00:17:28.579
But what's so interesting to me about
Lonnie and Gander's relationship

00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:30.357
is about a few months in,

00:17:30.357 --> 00:17:33.974
Gander actually developed a fear of heights,

00:17:33.974 --> 00:17:37.981
probably because he was
watching Lonnie so closely.

00:17:37.981 --> 00:17:41.450
What's pretty great about this though
is that he's a fantastic service dog,

00:17:41.450 --> 00:17:44.295
because now, when they're both at a great height,

00:17:44.295 --> 00:17:47.343
Lonnie is so concerned with Gander's well-being

00:17:47.343 --> 00:17:53.317
that he forgets to be scared of the heights himself.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:53.317 --> 00:17:56.838
Since I've spent so much time with these stories,

00:17:56.838 --> 00:17:58.582
digging into archives,

00:17:58.582 --> 00:18:00.786
I literally spent years doing this research,

00:18:00.786 --> 00:18:03.216
and it's changed me.

00:18:03.216 --> 00:18:07.142
I no longer look at animals at the species level.

00:18:07.142 --> 00:18:09.043
I look at them as individuals,

00:18:09.043 --> 00:18:10.832
and I think about them as creatures

00:18:10.832 --> 00:18:13.531
with their own individual weather systems

00:18:13.531 --> 00:18:15.343
guiding their behavior and informing

00:18:15.343 --> 00:18:17.642
how they respond to the world.

00:18:17.642 --> 00:18:20.090
And I really believe that this has made me

00:18:20.090 --> 00:18:23.184
a more curious and a more empathetic person,

00:18:23.184 --> 00:18:26.547
both to the animals that share my bed

00:18:26.547 --> 00:18:28.403
and occasionally wind up on my plate,

00:18:28.403 --> 00:18:31.463
but also to the people that I know

00:18:31.463 --> 00:18:33.894
who are suffering from anxiety

00:18:33.894 --> 00:18:36.941
and from phobias and all manner of other things,

00:18:36.941 --> 00:18:38.786
and I really do believe that

00:18:38.786 --> 00:18:40.744
even though you can't know exactly

00:18:40.744 --> 00:18:44.131
what's going on in the mind of a pig

00:18:44.131 --> 00:18:46.818
or your pug or your partner,

00:18:46.818 --> 00:18:50.395
that that shouldn't stop you
from empathizing with them.

00:18:50.395 --> 00:18:52.544
The best thing that we could do for our loved ones

00:18:52.544 --> 00:18:57.370
is, perhaps, to anthropomorphize them.

NOTE Paragraph

00:18:57.370 --> 00:19:00.341
Charles Darwin's father once told him

00:19:00.341 --> 00:19:05.560
that everybody could lose their mind at some point.

00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:08.631
Thankfully, we can often find them again,

00:19:08.631 --> 00:19:10.762
but only with each other's help.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:10.762 --> 00:19:12.618
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:12.618 --> 00:19:16.191
(Applause)