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Oliver was an extremely dashing,

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handsome, charming and largely unstable male

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that I completely lost my heart to.

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(Laughter)

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He was a Bernese mountain dog,

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and my ex-husband and I adopted him,

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and about six months in,

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we realized that he was a mess.

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He had such paralyzing separation anxiety

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that we couldn't leave him alone.

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Once, he jumped out of our third floor apartment.

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He ate fabric. He ate things, recyclables.

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He hunted flies that didn't exist.

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He suffered from hallucinations.

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He was diagnosed with a canine compulsive disorder

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and that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

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But like with humans,

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sometimes it's six months in

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before you realize that

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the person that you love has some issues.

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(Laughter)

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And most of us do not take the person we're dating

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back to the bar where we met them

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or give them back to the friend that introduced us,

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or sign them back up on Match.com.

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(Laughter)

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We love them anyway,

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and we stick to it,

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and that is what I did with my dog.

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And I was a — I'd studied biology.

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I have a Ph.D. in history of science

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from MIT,

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and had you asked me 10 years ago

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if a dog I loved, or just dogs generally,

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had emotions, I would have said yes,

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but I'm not sure that I would have told you

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that they can also wind up with an anxiety disorder,

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a Prozac prescription and a therapist.

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But then, I fell in love, and I realized that they can,

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and actually trying to help my own dog

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overcome his panic and his anxiety,

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it just changed my life.

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It cracked open my world.

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And I spent the last seven years, actually,

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looking into this topic of
mental illness in other animals.

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Can they be mentally ill like people,

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and if so, what does it mean about us?

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And what I discovered is that I do believe

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they can suffer from mental illness,

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and actually looking and trying
to identify mental illness in them

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often helps us be better friends to them

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and also can help us better understand ourselves.

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So let's talk about diagnosis for a minute.

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Many of us think that we can't know

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what another animal is thinking,

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and that is true,

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but any of you in relationships —

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at least this is my case —

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just because you ask someone that you're with

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or your parent or your child how they feel

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doesn't mean that they can tell you.

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They may not have words to explain

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what it is that they're feeling,

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and they may not know.

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It's actually a pretty recent phenomenon

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that we feel that we have to talk to someone

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to understand their emotional distress.

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Before the early 20th century,

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physicians often diagnosed emotional distress

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in their patients just by observation.

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It also turns out that thinking about

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mental illness in other animals

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isn't actually that much of a stretch.

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Most mental disorders in the United States

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are fear and anxiety disorders,

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and when you think about it, fear and anxiety

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are actually really extremely
helpful animal emotions.

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Usually we feel fear and anxiety
in situations that are dangerous,

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and once we feel them,

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we then are motivated to move away

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from whatever is dangerous.

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The problem is when we begin to feel fear
and anxiety in situations that don't call for it.

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Mood disorders, too, may actually just be

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the unfortunate downside of being a feeling animal,

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and obsessive compulsive disorders also

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are often manifestations of
a really healthy animal thing

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which is keeping yourself clean and groomed.

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This tips into the territory of mental illness

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when you do things like

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compulsively over-wash your hands or paws,

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or you develop a ritual that's so extreme

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that you can't sit down to a bowl of food

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unless you engage in that ritual.

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So for humans, we have the
"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual,"

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which is basically an atlas

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of the currently agreed-upon mental disorders.

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In other animals, we have YouTube.

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(Laughter)

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This is just one search I did for "OCD dog"

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but I encourage all of you

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to look at "OCD cat."

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You will be shocked by what you see.

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I'm going to show you just a couple examples.

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This is an example of shadow-chasing.

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I know, and it's funny and in some ways it's cute.

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The issue, though, is that dogs
can develop compulsions like this

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that they then engage in all day.

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So they won't go for a walk,

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they won't hang out with their friends,

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they won't eat.

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They'll develop fixations

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like chasing their tails compulsively.

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Here's an example of a cat named Gizmo.

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He looks like he's on a stakeout

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but he does this for many, many, many hours a day.

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He just sits there and he will paw and paw and paw

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at the screen.

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This is another example of what's considered

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a stereotypic behavior.

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This is a sun bear at the
Oakland Zoo named Ting Ting.

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And if you just sort of happened upon this scene,

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you might think that Ting Ting

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is just playing with a stick,

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but Ting Ting does this all day,

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and if you pay close attention

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and if I showed you guys
the full half-hour of this clip,

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you'd see that he does the exact same thing

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in the exact same order, and he spins the stick

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in the exact same way every time.

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Other super common behaviors that you may see,

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particularly in captive animals,

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are pacing stereotypies or swaying stereotypies,

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and actually, humans do this too,

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and in us, we'll sway,

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we'll move from side to side.

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Many of us do this, and sometimes

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it's an effort to soothe ourselves,

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and I think in other animals
that is often the case too.

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But it's not just stereotypic behaviors

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that other animals engage in.

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This is Gigi. She's a gorilla that lives

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at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.

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She actually has a Harvard psychiatrist,

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and she's been treated for a mood disorder

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among other things.

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Many animals develop mood disorders.

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Lots of creatures —

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this horse is just one example —

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develop self-destructive behaviors.

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They'll gnaw on things

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or do other things that may also soothe them,

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even if they're self-destructive,

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which could be considered similar

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to the ways that some humans cut themselves.

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Plucking.

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Turns out, if you have fur or feathers or skin,

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you can pluck yourself compulsively,

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and some parrots actually have been studied

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to better understand trichotillomania,
or compulsive plucking in humans,

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something that affects

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20 million Americans right now.

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Lab rats pluck themselves too.

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In them, it's called barbering.

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Canine veterans of conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan

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are coming back with what's
considered canine PTSD,

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and they're having a hard time reentering civilian life

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when they come back from deployments.

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They can be too scared to
approach men with beards

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or to hop into cars.

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I want to be careful and be clear, though.

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I do not think that canine PTSD

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is the same as human PTSD.

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But I also do not think that my PTSD

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is like your PTSD,

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or that my anxiety or that my sadness is like yours.

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We are all different.

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We also all have very different susceptibilities.

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So two dogs, raised in the same household,

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exposed to the very same things,

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one may develop, say, a
debilitating fear of motorcycles,

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or a phobia of the beep of the microwave,

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and another one is going to be just fine.

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So one thing that people ask me pretty frequently:

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Is this just an instance of humans

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driving other animals crazy?

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Or, is animal mental illness just
a result of mistreatment or abuse?

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And it turns out we're actually

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so much more complicated than that.

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So one great thing that has happened to me

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is recently I published a book on this,

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and every day now that I open my email

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or when I go to a reading

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or even when I go to a cocktail party,

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people tell me their stories

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of the animals that they have met.

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And recently, I did a reading in California,

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and a woman raised her hand
after the talk and she said,

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"Dr. Braitman, I think my cat has PTSD."

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And I said, "Well, why? Tell me a little bit about it."

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So, Ping is her cat. She was a rescue,

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and she used to live with an elderly man,

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and one day the man was vacuuming

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and he suffered a heart attack, and he died.

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A week later, Ping was discovered in the apartment

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alongside the body of her owner,

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and the vacuum had been running the entire time.

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For many months, up to I think
two years after that incident,

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she was so scared she couldn't be in
the house when anyone was cleaning.

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She was quite literally a scaredy cat.

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She would hide in the closet.

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She was un-self-confident and shaky,

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but with the loving support of her family,

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a lot of a time, and their patience,

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now, three years later,

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she's actually a happy, confident cat.

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Another story of trauma and
recovery that I came across

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was actually a few years ago.

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I was in Thailand to do some research.

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I met a monkey named Boonlua,

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and when Boonlua was a baby,

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he was attacked by a pack of dogs,

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and they ripped off both of his legs and one arm,

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and Boonlua dragged himself to a monastery,

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where the monks took him in.

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They called in a veterinarian,
who treated his wounds.

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Eventually, Boonlua wound up

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at an elephant facility,

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and the keepers really decided
to take him under their wing,

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and they figured out what he liked,

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which, it turned out, was mint Mentos

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and Rhinoceros beetles and eggs.

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But they worried, because he
was social, that he was lonely,

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and they didn't want to put
him in with another monkey,

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because they thought with just one arm,

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he wouldn't be able to defend himself or even play.

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And so they gave him a rabbit,

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and Boonlua was immediately a different monkey.

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He was extremely happy to be with this rabbit.

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They groomed each other,
they become close friends,

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and then the rabbit had bunnies,

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and Boonlua was even happier than he was before,

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and it had in a way given him

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a reason to wake up in the morning,

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and in fact it gave him such a reason to wake up

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that he decided not to sleep.

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He became extremely protective of these bunnies,

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and he stopped sleeping,

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and he would sort of nod off

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while trying to take care of them.

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In fact, he was so protective and so affectionate

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with these babies that the sanctuary

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eventually had to take them away from him

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because he was so protective, he was worried

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that their mother might hurt them.

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So after they were taken away, the sanctuary staff

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worried that he would fall into a depression,

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and so to avoid that,

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they gave him another rabbit friend.

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(Laughter)

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My official opinion is that
he does not look depressed.

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(Laughter)

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So one thing that I would really like people to feel

263
00:10:53,821 --> 00:10:56,900
is that you really should feel empowered

264
00:10:56,900 --> 00:10:59,373
to make some assumptions

265
00:10:59,373 --> 00:11:01,196
about the creatures that you know well.

266
00:11:01,196 --> 00:11:02,996
So when it comes to your dog

267
00:11:02,996 --> 00:11:05,314
or your cat or maybe your one-armed monkey

268
00:11:05,314 --> 00:11:06,742
that you happen to know,

269
00:11:06,742 --> 00:11:10,537
if you think that they are traumatized or depressed,

270
00:11:10,537 --> 00:11:12,663
you're probably right.

271
00:11:12,663 --> 00:11:15,471
This is extremely anthropomorphic,

272
00:11:15,471 --> 00:11:18,464
or the assignation of human characteristics

273
00:11:18,464 --> 00:11:22,116
onto non-human animals or things.

274
00:11:22,116 --> 00:11:24,257
I don't think, though, that that's a problem.

275
00:11:24,257 --> 00:11:26,349
I don't think that we can not anthropomorphize.

276
00:11:26,349 --> 00:11:29,251
It's not as if you can take your
human brain out of your head

277
00:11:29,251 --> 00:11:31,355
and put it in a jar and then use it

278
00:11:31,355 --> 00:11:33,560
to think about another animal thinking.

279
00:11:33,560 --> 00:11:36,158
We will always be one animal wondering

280
00:11:36,158 --> 00:11:38,678
about the emotional experience of another animal.

281
00:11:38,678 --> 00:11:41,671
So then the choice becomes, how
do you anthropomorphize well?

282
00:11:41,671 --> 00:11:43,931
Or do you anthropomorphize poorly?

283
00:11:43,931 --> 00:11:46,215
And anthropomorphizing poorly

284
00:11:46,215 --> 00:11:48,380
is all too common.

285
00:11:48,380 --> 00:11:50,012
(Laughter)

286
00:11:50,012 --> 00:11:52,616
It may include dressing your corgis
up and throwing them a wedding,

287
00:11:52,616 --> 00:11:55,272
or getting too close to exotic wildlife because

288
00:11:55,272 --> 00:11:57,228
you believe that you had a spiritual connection.

289
00:11:57,228 --> 00:11:59,206
There's all manner of things.

290
00:11:59,206 --> 00:12:03,112
Anthropomorphizing well, however, I believe is based

291
00:12:03,112 --> 00:12:05,830
on accepting our animal
similarities with other species

292
00:12:05,830 --> 00:12:08,637
and using them to make assumptions

293
00:12:08,637 --> 00:12:12,276
that are informed about other 
animals' minds and experiences,

294
00:12:12,276 --> 00:12:14,822
and there's actually an entire industry

295
00:12:14,822 --> 00:12:17,792
that is in some ways based
on anthropomorphizing well,

296
00:12:17,792 --> 00:12:20,953
and that is the psychopharmaceutical industry.

297
00:12:20,953 --> 00:12:25,473
One in five Americans is currently
taking a psychopharmaceutical drug,

298
00:12:25,473 --> 00:12:28,128
from the antidepressants
and antianxiety medications

299
00:12:28,128 --> 00:12:29,950
to the antipsychotics.

300
00:12:29,950 --> 00:12:31,784
It turns out that we owe this

301
00:12:31,784 --> 00:12:34,157
entire psychopharmaceutical arsenal

302
00:12:34,157 --> 00:12:35,889
to other animals.

303
00:12:35,889 --> 00:12:38,399
These drugs were tested in non-human animals first,

304
00:12:38,399 --> 00:12:42,335
and not just for toxicity but for behavioral effects.

305
00:12:42,335 --> 00:12:45,519
The very popular antipsychotic Thorazine

306
00:12:45,519 --> 00:12:49,265
first relaxed rats before it relaxed people.

307
00:12:49,265 --> 00:12:51,426
The antianxiety medication Librium

308
00:12:51,426 --> 00:12:55,249
was given to cats selected for
their meanness in the 1950s

309
00:12:55,249 --> 00:12:57,640
and made them into peaceable felines.

310
00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:02,200
And even antidepressants
were first tested in rabbits.

311
00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:05,104
Today, however, we are not just giving these drugs

312
00:13:05,104 --> 00:13:07,455
to other animals as test subjects,

313
00:13:07,455 --> 00:13:09,946
but they're giving them these drugs as patients,

314
00:13:09,946 --> 00:13:14,429
both in ethical and much less ethical ways.

315
00:13:14,429 --> 00:13:18,299
SeaWorld gives mother orcas
antianxiety medications

316
00:13:18,299 --> 00:13:20,943
when their calves are taken away.

317
00:13:20,943 --> 00:13:23,226
Many zoo gorillas have been given antipsychotics

318
00:13:23,226 --> 00:13:25,292
and antianxiety medications.

319
00:13:25,292 --> 00:13:28,165
But dogs like my own Oliver

320
00:13:28,165 --> 00:13:31,404
are given antidepressants and
some antianxiety medications

321
00:13:31,404 --> 00:13:33,140
to keep them from jumping out of buildings

322
00:13:33,140 --> 00:13:35,203
or jumping into traffic.

323
00:13:35,203 --> 00:13:38,402
Just recently, actually, a study came out in "Science"

324
00:13:38,402 --> 00:13:40,231
that showed that even crawdads

325
00:13:40,231 --> 00:13:42,455
responded to antianxiety medication.

326
00:13:42,455 --> 00:13:44,730
It made them braver, less skittish,

327
00:13:44,730 --> 00:13:49,780
and more likely to explore their environment.

328
00:13:49,780 --> 00:13:52,138
It's hard to know how many
animals are on these drugs,

329
00:13:52,138 --> 00:13:55,602
but I can tell you that the
animal pharmaceutical industry

330
00:13:55,602 --> 00:13:57,390
is immense and growing,

331
00:13:57,390 --> 00:14:00,113
from seven billion dollars in 2011

332
00:14:00,113 --> 00:14:05,692
to a projected 9.25 billion by the year 2015.

333
00:14:05,692 --> 00:14:09,539
Some animals are on these drugs indefinitely.

334
00:14:09,539 --> 00:14:13,774
Others, like one bonobo who lives in Milwaukee

335
00:14:13,774 --> 00:14:15,360
at the zoo there was on them

336
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:17,511
until he started to save his Paxil prescription

337
00:14:17,511 --> 00:14:19,907
and then distribute it among the other bonobos.

338
00:14:19,907 --> 00:14:24,916
(Laughter) (Applause)

339
00:14:24,916 --> 00:14:27,805
More than psychopharmaceuticals, though,

340
00:14:27,805 --> 00:14:30,320
there are many, many, many other

341
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:32,968
therapeutic interventions that help other creatures.

342
00:14:32,968 --> 00:14:35,330
And here is a place where I think actually

343
00:14:35,330 --> 00:14:37,772
that veterinary medicine can teach something

344
00:14:37,772 --> 00:14:39,458
to human medicine,

345
00:14:39,458 --> 00:14:41,348
which is, if you take your dog, who is, say,

346
00:14:41,348 --> 00:14:43,148
compulsively chasing his tail,

347
00:14:43,148 --> 00:14:44,926
into the veterinary behaviorist,

348
00:14:44,926 --> 00:14:47,730
their first action isn't to reach
for the prescription pad;

349
00:14:47,730 --> 00:14:50,686
it's to ask you about your dog's life.

350
00:14:50,686 --> 00:14:53,622
They want to know how often your dog gets outside.

351
00:14:53,622 --> 00:14:56,276
They want to know how much
exercise your dog is getting.

352
00:14:56,276 --> 00:14:57,761
They want to know how much social time

353
00:14:57,761 --> 00:15:00,180
with other dogs and other humans.

354
00:15:00,180 --> 00:15:02,390
They want to talk to you
about what sorts of therapies,

355
00:15:02,390 --> 00:15:04,905
largely behavior therapies,

356
00:15:04,905 --> 00:15:07,165
you've tried with that animal.

357
00:15:07,165 --> 00:15:09,562
Those are the things that
often tend to help the most,

358
00:15:09,562 --> 00:15:12,891
especially when combined with
psychopharmaceuticals.

359
00:15:12,891 --> 00:15:15,344
The thing, though, I believe, that helps the most,

360
00:15:15,344 --> 00:15:17,301
particularly with social animals,

361
00:15:17,301 --> 00:15:20,439
is time with other social animals.

362
00:15:20,439 --> 00:15:24,347
In many ways, I feel like I became a service animal

363
00:15:24,347 --> 00:15:26,851
to my own dog,

364
00:15:26,851 --> 00:15:30,878
and I have seen parrots do it for people

365
00:15:30,878 --> 00:15:32,588
and people do it for parrots

366
00:15:32,588 --> 00:15:34,126
and dogs do it for elephants

367
00:15:34,126 --> 00:15:37,304
and elephants do it for other elephants.

368
00:15:37,304 --> 00:15:38,637
I don't know about you;

369
00:15:38,637 --> 00:15:41,217
I get a lot of Internet forwards

370
00:15:41,217 --> 00:15:43,433
of unlikely animal friendships.

371
00:15:43,433 --> 00:15:46,720
I also think it's a huge part of Facebook,

372
00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:49,597
the monkey that adopts the cat

373
00:15:49,597 --> 00:15:54,233
or the great dane who adopted the orphaned fawn,

374
00:15:54,233 --> 00:15:57,237
or the cow that makes friends with the pig,

375
00:15:57,237 --> 00:16:01,173
and had you asked me eight,
nine years ago, about these,

376
00:16:01,173 --> 00:16:03,663
I would have told you that they
were hopelessly sentimental

377
00:16:03,663 --> 00:16:06,786
and maybe too anthropomorphic in the wrong way

378
00:16:06,786 --> 00:16:09,565
and maybe even staged, and what I can tell you now

379
00:16:09,565 --> 00:16:12,517
is that there is actually something to this.

380
00:16:12,517 --> 00:16:16,112
This is legit. In fact, some interesting studies

381
00:16:16,112 --> 00:16:18,038
have pointed to oxytocin levels,

382
00:16:18,038 --> 00:16:20,634
which are a kind of bonding hormone

383
00:16:20,634 --> 00:16:23,040
that we release when we're having sex or nursing

384
00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:25,629
or around someone that we care for extremely,

385
00:16:25,629 --> 00:16:28,121
oxytocin levels raising in both humans and dogs

386
00:16:28,121 --> 00:16:29,515
who care about each other

387
00:16:29,515 --> 00:16:31,175
or who enjoy each other's company,

388
00:16:31,175 --> 00:16:33,484
and beyond that, other studies show that oxytocin

389
00:16:33,484 --> 00:16:35,620
raised even in other pairs of animals,

390
00:16:35,620 --> 00:16:39,225
so, say, in goats and dogs who were
friends and played with each other,

391
00:16:39,225 --> 00:16:43,684
their levels spiked afterwards.

392
00:16:43,684 --> 00:16:46,451
I have a friend who really showed me that

393
00:16:46,451 --> 00:16:48,875
mental health is in fact a two-way street.

394
00:16:48,875 --> 00:16:52,874
His name is Lonnie Hodge,
and he's a veteran of Vietnam.

395
00:16:52,874 --> 00:16:55,496
When he returned, he started working

396
00:16:55,496 --> 00:16:58,139
with survivors of genocide and a lot of people

397
00:16:58,139 --> 00:16:59,667
who had gone through war trauma.

398
00:16:59,667 --> 00:17:02,151
And he had PTSD and also a fear of heights,

399
00:17:02,151 --> 00:17:04,050
because in Vietnam, he had been

400
00:17:04,050 --> 00:17:06,295
rappelling backwards out of helicopters

401
00:17:06,295 --> 00:17:07,730
over the skids,

402
00:17:07,730 --> 00:17:10,799
and he was givena service dog
named Gander, a labradoodle,

403
00:17:10,799 --> 00:17:14,250
to help him with PTSD and his fear of heights.

404
00:17:14,250 --> 00:17:16,910
This is them actually on the first day that they met,

405
00:17:16,910 --> 00:17:19,502
which is amazing, and since then,

406
00:17:19,502 --> 00:17:21,267
they've spent a lot of time together

407
00:17:21,267 --> 00:17:25,517
visiting with other veterans
suffering from similar issues.

408
00:17:25,517 --> 00:17:28,579
But what's so interesting to me about
Lonnie and Gander's relationship

409
00:17:28,579 --> 00:17:30,357
is about a few months in,

410
00:17:30,357 --> 00:17:33,684
Gander actually developed a fear of heights,

411
00:17:33,684 --> 00:17:37,981
probably because he was
watching Lonnie so closely.

412
00:17:37,981 --> 00:17:41,450
What's pretty great about this, though,
is that he's still a fantastic service dog,

413
00:17:41,450 --> 00:17:43,985
because now, when they're both at a great height,

414
00:17:43,985 --> 00:17:47,343
Lonnie is so concerned with Gander's well-being

415
00:17:47,343 --> 00:17:53,317
that he forgets to be scared of the heights himself.

416
00:17:53,317 --> 00:17:56,598
Since I've spent so much time with these stories,

417
00:17:56,598 --> 00:17:58,002
digging into archives,

418
00:17:58,002 --> 00:18:00,456
I literally spent years doing this research,

419
00:18:00,456 --> 00:18:02,756
and it's changed me.

420
00:18:02,756 --> 00:18:06,692
I no longer look at animals at the species level.

421
00:18:06,692 --> 00:18:08,920
I look at them as individuals,

422
00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:10,492
and I think about them as creatures

423
00:18:10,492 --> 00:18:13,251
with their own individual weather systems

424
00:18:13,251 --> 00:18:14,963
guiding their behavior and informing

425
00:18:14,963 --> 00:18:17,272
how they respond to the world.

426
00:18:17,272 --> 00:18:20,160
And I really believe that this has made me

427
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,524
a more curious and a more empathetic person,

428
00:18:22,524 --> 00:18:25,967
both to the animals that share my bed

429
00:18:25,967 --> 00:18:28,093
and occasionally wind up on my plate,

430
00:18:28,093 --> 00:18:30,943
but also to the people that I know

431
00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:33,894
who are suffering from anxiety

432
00:18:33,894 --> 00:18:36,521
and from phobias and all manner of other things,

433
00:18:36,521 --> 00:18:38,496
and I really do believe that

434
00:18:38,496 --> 00:18:40,744
even though you can't know exactly

435
00:18:40,744 --> 00:18:44,131
what's going on in the mind of a pig

436
00:18:44,131 --> 00:18:46,238
or your pug or your partner,

437
00:18:46,248 --> 00:18:50,055
that that shouldn't stop you
from empathizing with them.

438
00:18:50,055 --> 00:18:52,544
The best thing that we could do for our loved ones

439
00:18:52,544 --> 00:18:56,840
is, perhaps, to anthropomorphize them.

440
00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:00,341
Charles Darwin's father once told him

441
00:19:00,341 --> 00:19:05,560
that everybody could lose their mind at some point.

442
00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:08,391
Thankfully, we can often find them again,

443
00:19:08,391 --> 00:19:10,562
but only with each other's help.

444
00:19:10,562 --> 00:19:12,618
Thank you.

445
00:19:12,618 --> 00:19:16,191
(Applause)