July 10, 2008

Pet Scoop -- 7/10/08

The New York Times Magazine 7/13/08 has an article Pill Popping Pets about psychiatric intervention in pets and the practice of prescribing medications designed for humans to animals.

...scientists in an expanding field known as behavioral pharmacology say that the combination of new drug therapies and progressive training techniques can solve problems that in the past almost always resulted in euthanasia. The supposed effectiveness of psychiatric medicines in treating mood and behavior issues is prompting new questions in the centuries-old debate over what, exactly, separates mankind from the beasts. If the strict Cartesian view were true -- that animals are essentially flesh-and-blood automatons, lacking anything resembling human emotion, memory and consciousness -- then why do animals develop mental illnesses that eerily resemble human ones and that respond to the same medications? What can behavioral pharmacology teach us about animal minds and, ultimately, our own?

If animal behavior and psychology interests you, this is a fascinating article, one to read carefully and at your leisure.