Oliver was an extremely dashing, handsome, charming and largely unstable male that I completely lost my heart to.
Oliver je bio poletan, zgodan, šarmantan i prilično nestabilan mužjak koji mi je ukrao srce.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
He was a Bernese mountain dog, and my ex-husband and I adopted him, and about six months in, we realized that he was a mess. He had such paralyzing separation anxiety that we couldn't leave him alone. Once, he jumped out of our third floor apartment. He ate fabric. He ate things, recyclables. He hunted flies that didn't exist. He suffered from hallucinations. He was diagnosed with a canine compulsive disorder and that's really just the tip of the iceberg.
Bio je on bernski planinski pas, a moj bivši muž i ja posvojili smo ga. Nakon otprilike šest mjeseci shvatili smo da ima problema. Imao je takvu paralizirajuću separacijsku anksioznost da ga nismo smjeli ostaviti samog. Jednom je skočio s našeg stana na trećem katu. Jeo je tkaninu, stvari, smeće. Lovio je nepostojeće muhe. Imao je halucinacije. Dijagnosticiran mu je pseći opsesivno-kompulzivni poremećaj, a sve je to tek vrh ledene sante.
But like with humans, sometimes it's six months in before you realize that the person that you love has some issues. (Laughter) And most of us do not take the person we're dating back to the bar where we met them or give them back to the friend that introduced us, or sign them back up on Match.com. (Laughter) We love them anyway, and we stick to it, and that is what I did with my dog. And I was a — I'd studied biology. I have a Ph.D. in history of science from MIT, and had you asked me 10 years ago if a dog I loved, or just dogs generally, had emotions, I would have said yes, but I'm not sure that I would have told you that they can also wind up with an anxiety disorder, a Prozac prescription and a therapist. But then, I fell in love, and I realized that they can, and actually trying to help my own dog overcome his panic and his anxiety, it just changed my life. It cracked open my world. And I spent the last seven years, actually, looking into this topic of mental illness in other animals. Can they be mentally ill like people, and if so, what does it mean about us? And what I discovered is that I do believe they can suffer from mental illness, and actually looking and trying to identify mental illness in them often helps us be better friends to them and also can help us better understand ourselves.
Ali baš kao i s ljudima, nekada tek nakon šest mjeseci shvatite da osoba koju volite nije baš sva svoja. (Smijeh) I većina nas neće osobu s kojom hodamo vratiti u bar u kojem smo je upoznali, ili ih vratiti prijateljima koji su nas upoznali, ili im reaktivirati korisnički račun na Iskrici. (Smijeh) Svejedno ih volimo i trpimo. To sam i ja učinila sa svojim psom. I bila sam — studirala sam biologiju. Imam doktorat znanosti s MIT-a i da ste me prije deset godina pitali ima li pas kojeg ja volim, ili bilo koji pas, osjećaje, rekla bih da ima, ali nisam sigurna bih vam li rekla da i oni mogu oboljeti od anksioznog poremećaja, završiti na Prozacu i s terapeutom. Ali onda sam se zaljubila i shvatila da je to moguće, a moji pokušaji da mu pomognem prebroditi paniku i anksioznost promijenili su mi život. Prodrmali su cijeli moj svijet. I tako sam zadnjih 7 godina provela proučavajući problem mentalnih bolesti i u drugih životinja. Mogu li i one mentalno oboljeti i ako je tako, što to znači za nas? Otkrila sam da uistinu vjerujem da i one mogu oboljeti, a promatranje i pokušavanje prepoznavanja njihovih mentalnih bolesti može nam pomoći da im budemo bolji prijatelji i da bolje razumijemo sami sebe.
So let's talk about diagnosis for a minute. Many of us think that we can't know what another animal is thinking, and that is true, but any of you in relationships — at least this is my case — just because you ask someone that you're with or your parent or your child how they feel doesn't mean that they can tell you. They may not have words to explain what it is that they're feeling, and they may not know. It's actually a pretty recent phenomenon that we feel that we have to talk to someone to understand their emotional distress. Before the early 20th century, physicians often diagnosed emotional distress in their patients just by observation. It also turns out that thinking about mental illness in other animals isn't actually that much of a stretch. Most mental disorders in the United States are fear and anxiety disorders, and when you think about it, fear and anxiety are actually really extremely helpful animal emotions. Usually we feel fear and anxiety in situations that are dangerous, and once we feel them, we then are motivated to move away from whatever is dangerous. The problem is when we begin to feel fear and anxiety in situations that don't call for it. Mood disorders, too, may actually just be the unfortunate downside of being a feeling animal, and obsessive compulsive disorders also are often manifestations of a really healthy animal thing which is keeping yourself clean and groomed. This tips into the territory of mental illness when you do things like compulsively over-wash your hands or paws, or you develop a ritual that's so extreme that you can't sit down to a bowl of food unless you engage in that ritual.
Pozabavimo se nakratko dijagnozom. Mnogi od nas misle da ne možemo znati o čemu druga životinja razmišlja. To je istina, ali svi vi koji ste u vezama — barem je kod mene tako — samo zato što pitate svoju bolju polovicu ili roditelja ili dijete kako su, ne znači da vam oni to mogu reći. Možda ne mogu riječima opisati što točno osjećaju, a možda i ne znaju. Ovo je zapravo prilično nov fenomen, taj osjećaj koji imamo da moramo razgovarati s nekim da bismo saznali što ih muči. Prije prve polovice 20. stoljeća liječnici su često dijagnosticirali duševne boli u pacijenata jednostavnim promatranjem. Također, čini se da rasprave o duševnim bolestima u drugih životinja i nije tako nategnuto. Najčešće duševne bolesti u SAD-u su strah i anksiozni poremećaji, a kad malo razmislite o tome, strah i anksioznost zapravo su iznimno korisne životinjske emocije. Obično osjećamo strah i anksioznost u opasnim situacijama i kad ih jednom osjetimo, imamo nagon udaljiti se od te opasnosti. Problem se stvara kad osjećamo strah u situacijama u kojima on nije potreban Poremećaji ponašanja također mogu biti samo loša strana osjećajnosti, a opsesivno-kompulzivni poremećaji su također često manifestacija zdrave životinjske potrebe za održavanjem čistoće i uglađenosti. O duševnoj bolesti možemo govoriti onda kada, primjerice kompulzivno pretjerujemo u pranju ruku ili šapa ili kad razvijete toliko ekstreman ritual da ne možete sjesti i jesti ukoliko prije toga ne odradite taj svoj ritual.
So for humans, we have the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual," which is basically an atlas of the currently agreed-upon mental disorders. In other animals, we have YouTube. (Laughter) This is just one search I did for "OCD dog" but I encourage all of you to look at "OCD cat." You will be shocked by what you see. I'm going to show you just a couple examples. This is an example of shadow-chasing. I know, and it's funny and in some ways it's cute. The issue, though, is that dogs can develop compulsions like this that they then engage in all day. So they won't go for a walk, they won't hang out with their friends, they won't eat. They'll develop fixations like chasing their tails compulsively.
Mi ljudi imamo Dijagnostički i statistički priručnik za mentalne poremećaje koji je zapravo atlas mentalnih poremećaja o kojima trenutno postoji suglasnost. Za životinje imamo YouTube. (Smijeh) Ovo je tek jedan rezultat pretraživanja za "OKP pas", ali svima vam predlažem da potražite OKP-mačku. Šokirat ćete se onim što vidite. Pokazat ću vam tek nekoliko primjera. Ovo je primjer hvatanja sjene. Znam, smiješno je i nekako i slatko. Problem je u tome što psi mogu razviti kompulzivnosti poput ove kojima se onda bave po cijele dane. Pa ne idu u šetnje, ne druže se s prijateljima, ne jedu. Razviju fiksacije poput kompulzivnog hvatanja vlastitog repa.
Here's an example of a cat named Gizmo. He looks like he's on a stakeout but he does this for many, many, many hours a day. He just sits there and he will paw and paw and paw at the screen. This is another example of what's considered a stereotypic behavior. This is a sun bear at the Oakland Zoo named Ting Ting. And if you just sort of happened upon this scene, you might think that Ting Ting is just playing with a stick, but Ting Ting does this all day, and if you pay close attention and if I showed you guys the full half-hour of this clip, you'd see that he does the exact same thing in the exact same order, and he spins the stick in the exact same way every time. Other super common behaviors that you may see, particularly in captive animals, are pacing stereotypies or swaying stereotypies, and actually, humans do this too, and in us, we'll sway, we'll move from side to side. Many of us do this, and sometimes it's an effort to soothe ourselves, and I think in other animals that is often the case too.
Ovo je primjer mačke imena Gizmo. Izgleda kao da je u zasjedi, ali to čini puno, puno, puno sati u danu. Samo tu sjedi i šapama dira ekran. Ovo je još jedan primjer stereotipnog ponašanja. Ovo je Ting Ting, sunčani medvjed u ZOO-u u Oaklandu. Ukoliko naletite na ovakvu scenu, pomislili biste da se Ting Ting samo igra štapom, ali on to radi cijeli dan, a ukoliko obratite pozornost i ukoliko vam ja pokažem cijeli taj polusatni video, vidjeli biste da stalno radi jednu te istu stvar istim redoslijedom i štap vrti na jednak način svaki put. Još jedno uobičajeno ponašanje koje možete uočiti osobito kod životinja u zatočeništvu jest stereotipno hodanje amo-tamo i njihanje, a to rade i ljudi. Mi se njišemo, ljuljamo. Mnogi od nas to čine i ponekad to činimo u želji da se umirimo, i mislim da i druge životinje to rade upravo iz tog razloga.
But it's not just stereotypic behaviors that other animals engage in. This is Gigi. She's a gorilla that lives at the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. She actually has a Harvard psychiatrist, and she's been treated for a mood disorder among other things. Many animals develop mood disorders. Lots of creatures — this horse is just one example — develop self-destructive behaviors. They'll gnaw on things or do other things that may also soothe them, even if they're self-destructive, which could be considered similar to the ways that some humans cut themselves.
Ali životinje se ne upuštaju samo u stereotipna ponašanja. Ovo je Gigi, ženka gorile koja živi u Bostonu u ZOO Franklin Park. Ona čak ima harvardskog psihijatra i između ostaloga, tretirana je protiv poremećaja ponašanja. Mnoge životinje razvijaju poremećaje raspoloženja. Mnoga stvorenja — ovaj je konj tek jedan primjer — razvijaju autodestruktivna ponašanja. Grizu stvari ili se bave drugim umirujućim aktivnostima, pa čak i ako su autodestruktivne, koje su slične načinima na koje se ljudi režu.
Plucking. Turns out, if you have fur or feathers or skin, you can pluck yourself compulsively, and some parrots actually have been studied to better understand trichotillomania, or compulsive plucking in humans, something that affects 20 million Americans right now. Lab rats pluck themselves too. In them, it's called barbering. Canine veterans of conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan are coming back with what's considered canine PTSD, and they're having a hard time reentering civilian life when they come back from deployments. They can be too scared to approach men with beards or to hop into cars.
Čupanje. Ispada da ukoliko imate krzno ili perje ili pak kožu, možete se kompulzivno čupati. Neke su papige istraživane radi boljeg razumijevanja trihotilomanije iliti kompulzivnog čupanja kod ljudi, nečega što trenutno muči 20 milijuna Amerikanaca. I laboratorijski štakori se čupkaju. Kod njih se to zove "brijanje". Pseći veterani konflikata u Iraku i Afganistanu vraćaju se s tzv. psećim PTSP-om i suočavaju se s teškoćama reintegracije u civilni život kad se vrate s ratišta. Pretjerano se boje prilaženja bradatog čovjeka ili uskakanja u automobile.
I want to be careful and be clear, though. I do not think that canine PTSD is the same as human PTSD. But I also do not think that my PTSD is like your PTSD, or that my anxiety or that my sadness is like yours. We are all different. We also all have very different susceptibilities. So two dogs, raised in the same household, exposed to the very same things, one may develop, say, a debilitating fear of motorcycles, or a phobia of the beep of the microwave, and another one is going to be just fine.
Želim da nešto bude jasno. Ne mislim da je pseći PTSP isto što i ljudski PTSP. Ali isto tako, ne mislim da je moj PTSP poput vašeg. Ili da je moja anksioznost ili tuga poput vaše. Svi smo različiti. Također, nismo jednako osjetljivi. Tako da kod dva psa odgojena u istom domaćinstvu, izložena istim stvarima, jedan može razviti, primjerice snažan strah prema motorima ili fobiju od zvona mikrovalne pećnice, a drugi može biti sasvim zdrav.
So one thing that people ask me pretty frequently: Is this just an instance of humans driving other animals crazy? Or, is animal mental illness just a result of mistreatment or abuse? And it turns out we're actually so much more complicated than that.
Ljudi me često pitaju: jesu li ljudi ti koji izluđuju životinje? Ili je životinjska duševna bolest tek rezultat lošeg tretmana i zlostavljanja? I ispada da smo mi zapravo puno kompliciraniji.
So one great thing that has happened to me is recently I published a book on this, and every day now that I open my email or when I go to a reading or even when I go to a cocktail party, people tell me their stories of the animals that they have met. And recently, I did a reading in California, and a woman raised her hand after the talk and she said, "Dr. Braitman, I think my cat has PTSD."
Dogodila mi se jedna sjajna stvar. Nedavno sam objavila knjigu o ovome i sada svaki dan kad provjeravam e-mail, ili idem na čitanje ili čak i na tulum, ljudi mi pričaju svoje priče o životinjama koje su upoznali. Nedavno sam imala čitanje u Kaliforniji. i kada sam završila, j edna je žena podigla ruku i rekla: "Dr. Braitman, mislim da moja mačka ima PTSP."
And I said, "Well, why? Tell me a little bit about it."
Rekoh: "Zašto? Recite mi malo o tome."
So, Ping is her cat. She was a rescue, and she used to live with an elderly man, and one day the man was vacuuming and he suffered a heart attack, and he died. A week later, Ping was discovered in the apartment alongside the body of her owner, and the vacuum had been running the entire time. For many months, up to I think two years after that incident, she was so scared she couldn't be in the house when anyone was cleaning. She was quite literally a scaredy cat. She would hide in the closet. She was un-self-confident and shaky, but with the loving support of her family, a lot of a time, and their patience, now, three years later, she's actually a happy, confident cat.
Ping je udomljena mačka koja je nekoć živjela sa starijim čovjekom i jednog dana on je usisavao, doživio srčani udar i umro. Tjedan dana kasnije, Ping su pronašli u stanu pored tijela njenog vlasnika, a usisavač je radio cijelo vrijeme. Mjesecima, a i otprilike dvije godine nakon tog incidenta, toliko se bojala da nije mogla biti u kući kad se u njoj čistilo. To je doslovno bila plašljiva maca. Skrivala se u ormar. Bila je nesamouvjerena i tresla se, ali uz brižnu potporu obitelji, puno vremena i strpljenja, sada, tri godine kasnije ona je sretna, samouvjerena maca.
Another story of trauma and recovery that I came across was actually a few years ago. I was in Thailand to do some research. I met a monkey named Boonlua, and when Boonlua was a baby, he was attacked by a pack of dogs, and they ripped off both of his legs and one arm, and Boonlua dragged himself to a monastery, where the monks took him in. They called in a veterinarian, who treated his wounds. Eventually, Boonlua wound up at an elephant facility, and the keepers really decided to take him under their wing, and they figured out what he liked, which, it turned out, was mint Mentos and Rhinoceros beetles and eggs. But they worried, because he was social, that he was lonely, and they didn't want to put him in with another monkey, because they thought with just one arm, he wouldn't be able to defend himself or even play. And so they gave him a rabbit, and Boonlua was immediately a different monkey. He was extremely happy to be with this rabbit. They groomed each other, they become close friends, and then the rabbit had bunnies, and Boonlua was even happier than he was before, and it had in a way given him a reason to wake up in the morning, and in fact it gave him such a reason to wake up that he decided not to sleep. He became extremely protective of these bunnies, and he stopped sleeping, and he would sort of nod off while trying to take care of them. In fact, he was so protective and so affectionate with these babies that the sanctuary eventually had to take them away from him because he was so protective, he was worried that their mother might hurt them. So after they were taken away, the sanctuary staff worried that he would fall into a depression, and so to avoid that, they gave him another rabbit friend. (Laughter) My official opinion is that he does not look depressed. (Laughter)
Još jedna priča o traumi i oporavku na koju sam naletjela prije nekoliko godina. Istraživala sam na Tajlandu. Upoznala sam majmuna Boonlua. Kad je Boonlua bio tek beba, napao ga je čopor pasa i otkinuli su mu obje noge i jednu ruku. Boonlua se odvukao do samostana gdje su ga primili redovnici. Pozvali su veterinara koji mu je zaliječio rane. Na kraju je Boonlua završio u centru za slonove i čuvari su odlučili uzeti ga pod svoje okrilje, shvatili su što voli, a to su bili Mentos bomboni, jelenak i jaja. No brinuli su se jer je bio društven, da bi mogao biti usamljen, a nisu ga htjeli staviti s drugim majmunom jer su mislili da se s jednom rukom ne bi mogao ni braniti ni igrati. Stoga su mu dali zeca i Boonlua je odmah postao sasvim drugi majmunčić. Jako se volio družiti s ovim zecom. Međusobno su se timarili i postali dobri prijatelji, i onda je zec dobio zečiće i Boonlua je postao još sretniji, i to mu je dalo razlog da se ujutro budi i zapravo mu je to dalo toliko razloga da se budi da je odlučio ne spavati. Postao je krajnje zaštitnički nastrojen prema zečićima, prestao je spavati, i znao je zadrijemati dok se pokušavao brinuti za njih. Bio je toliko zaštitnički nastrojen i nježan da mu je sklonište na kraju moralo oduzeti zečiće jer je bio toliko zaštitnički nastrojen da se bojao da će im njihova majka nauditi. Nakon što su ih oduzeli, osoblje se brinulo da će pasti u depresiju i kako bi to izbjegli, dali su mu drugog zeca. (Smijeh) Moje službeno mišljenje glasi: ne izgleda depresivno. (Smijeh)
So one thing that I would really like people to feel is that you really should feel empowered to make some assumptions about the creatures that you know well. So when it comes to your dog or your cat or maybe your one-armed monkey that you happen to know, if you think that they are traumatized or depressed, you're probably right. This is extremely anthropomorphic, or the assignation of human characteristics onto non-human animals or things. I don't think, though, that that's a problem. I don't think that we can not anthropomorphize. It's not as if you can take your human brain out of your head and put it in a jar and then use it to think about another animal thinking. We will always be one animal wondering about the emotional experience of another animal.
Želim da se ljudi uistinu osjećaju sposobno praviti pretpostavke o stvorenjima koje dobro poznaju. Bilo da se radi o vašem psu, mački ili jednorukom majmunu kojeg poznajete, ukoliko mislite da su traumatizirani ili depresivni, vjerojatno ste u pravu. Ovo je krajnje antropomorfno, odnosno pridaju se ljudske osobine nečovjekolikim životinjama ili stvarima. Ja mislim da to nije problem. Mislim da ne možemo ne antropomorfizirati. Nije da možemo uzeti svoj ljudski mozak iz glave i pohraniti ga u staklenku i koristiti ga da razmišljamo o razmišljanju druge životinje. Uvijek ćemo biti jedna životinja koja se pita o emocionalnim iskustvima druge životinje.
So then the choice becomes, how do you anthropomorphize well? Or do you anthropomorphize poorly? And anthropomorphizing poorly is all too common. (Laughter) It may include dressing your corgis up and throwing them a wedding, or getting too close to exotic wildlife because you believe that you had a spiritual connection. There's all manner of things. Anthropomorphizing well, however, I believe is based on accepting our animal similarities with other species and using them to make assumptions that are informed about other animals' minds and experiences, and there's actually an entire industry that is in some ways based on anthropomorphizing well, and that is the psychopharmaceutical industry.
Kako dobro antropomorfizirati? Ili loše? A loše antropomorfiziranje jako je često. (Smijeh) Može uključivati kostimiranje korgija za vjenčanje ili pretjerano približavanje divljim životinjama s kojima mislite da ste duhovno povezani. Ima svakakvih stvari. Vjerujem da se dobro antropomorfiziranje temelji na prihvaćanju naših životinjskih sličnosti s drugim vrstama i njihova upotreba u stvaranju informiranih pretpostavki o umovima drugih životinja i njihovim iskustvima. Postoji cijela industrija utemeljena na dobrom antropomorfiziranju, a to je psihofarmaceutska industrija.
One in five Americans is currently taking a psychopharmaceutical drug, from the antidepressants and antianxiety medications to the antipsychotics. It turns out that we owe this entire psychopharmaceutical arsenal to other animals. These drugs were tested in non-human animals first, and not just for toxicity but for behavioral effects. The very popular antipsychotic Thorazine first relaxed rats before it relaxed people. The antianxiety medication Librium was given to cats selected for their meanness in the 1950s and made them into peaceable felines. And even antidepressants were first tested in rabbits.
Svaki peti Amerikanac trenutno koristi neki psihoaktivni lijek, od antidepresiva, lijekova protiv anksioznosti pa sve do antipsihotika. Ispada da za cijeli ovaj arsenal psihoaktivnih lijekova možemo zahvaliti drugim životinjama. Ovi su lijekovi najprije testirani na nečovjekolikim životinjama, i to ne samo na toksičnost već i na posljedice u ponašanju. Popularan antipsihotik Thorazine opuštao je štakore prije no što su ljudi došli na red. Librium, lijek protiv anksioznosti, u 50-ima je davan mačkama izabranima po kriteriju "zloće" kako bi ih pretvorio u miroljubive mace. Čak su i antidepresivi najprije testirani na zečevima.
Today, however, we are not just giving these drugs to other animals as test subjects, but they're giving them these drugs as patients, both in ethical and much less ethical ways. SeaWorld gives mother orcas antianxiety medications when their calves are taken away. Many zoo gorillas have been given antipsychotics and antianxiety medications. But dogs like my own Oliver are given antidepressants and some antianxiety medications to keep them from jumping out of buildings or jumping into traffic. Just recently, actually, a study came out in "Science" that showed that even crawdads responded to antianxiety medication. It made them braver, less skittish, and more likely to explore their environment.
Kako bilo, u današnje vrijeme ove lijekove ne dajemo drugim životinjama samo radi testiranja već i radi njihova liječenja, i na etičke i na neetičke načine. SeaWorld daje majkama orkama lijekove protiv anksioznosti kada im odvode mlade. Mnogim se gorilama u ZOO-u daju antipsihotici i lijekovi protiv anksioznosti. Ali psima poput mog Olivera daju se antidepresivi i neki lijekovi protiv anksioznosti kako ne bi skakali sa zgrada ili u promet. Nedavno je u časopisu "Science" izašla studija koja je pokazala da lijekovi protiv anksioznosti djeluju čak i na slatkovodne rakove. Od njih su bili hrabriji, manje ćudljivi i skloniji istraživanju okoliša.
It's hard to know how many animals are on these drugs, but I can tell you that the animal pharmaceutical industry is immense and growing, from seven billion dollars in 2011 to a projected 9.25 billion by the year 2015.
Teško je znati koliko je životinja na ovim lijekovima, ali mogu vam reći da je životinjska farmaceutska industrija ogromna i u porastu, od 7 milijardi dolara u 2011. g. do projiciranih 9.25 milijardi do kraja 2015. godine.
Some animals are on these drugs indefinitely. Others, like one bonobo who lives in Milwaukee at the zoo there was on them until he started to save his Paxil prescription and then distribute it among the other bonobos. (Laughter) (Applause)
Neke su životinje na ovim lijekovima na neodređeno. Druge, poput jedne patuljaste čimpanze iz ZOO-a u Milwaukeeu bio je na njima sve dok nije počeo čuvati svoje tabletice Paxila i dijeliti ih drugim patuljastim čimpanzama. (Smijeh) (Pljesak)
More than psychopharmaceuticals, though, there are many, many, many other therapeutic interventions that help other creatures. And here is a place where I think actually that veterinary medicine can teach something to human medicine, which is, if you take your dog, who is, say, compulsively chasing his tail, into the veterinary behaviorist, their first action isn't to reach for the prescription pad; it's to ask you about your dog's life. They want to know how often your dog gets outside. They want to know how much exercise your dog is getting. They want to know how much social time with other dogs and other humans. They want to talk to you about what sorts of therapies, largely behavior therapies, you've tried with that animal. Those are the things that often tend to help the most, especially when combined with psychopharmaceuticals.
Osim psihofarmaceutika postoje i mnoge, mnoge, mnoge druge terapeutske intervencije koje pomažu drugim životinjama. Mislim da je baš to ono čemu veterinarska medicina može poučiti onu ljudsku, ukoliko odvedemo psa koji kompulzivno hvata vlastiti rep kod veterinarskog biheviorista, oni se neće odmah uhvatiti pisanja recepta, nego će pitati o životu vašeg psa. Zanimat će ih koliko često izlazi van. Ili koliko vježba. Ili koliko se druži s drugim psima i ljudima. Zanimat će ih kakve ste vrste terapija, uglavnom bihevioralnih terapija, isprobali na njemu. To su stvari koje su od najveće pomoći, pogotovo kada se kombiniraju sa psihofarmaceuticima.
The thing, though, I believe, that helps the most, particularly with social animals, is time with other social animals. In many ways, I feel like I became a service animal to my own dog, and I have seen parrots do it for people and people do it for parrots and dogs do it for elephants and elephants do it for other elephants. I don't know about you; I get a lot of Internet forwards of unlikely animal friendships. I also think it's a huge part of Facebook, the monkey that adopts the cat or the great dane who adopted the orphaned fawn, or the cow that makes friends with the pig, and had you asked me eight, nine years ago, about these, I would have told you that they were hopelessly sentimental and maybe too anthropomorphic in the wrong way and maybe even staged, and what I can tell you now is that there is actually something to this. This is legit. In fact, some interesting studies have pointed to oxytocin levels, which are a kind of bonding hormone that we release when we're having sex or nursing or around someone that we care for extremely, oxytocin levels raising in both humans and dogs who care about each other or who enjoy each other's company, and beyond that, other studies show that oxytocin raised even in other pairs of animals, so, say, in goats and dogs who were friends and played with each other, their levels spiked afterwards.
Ono što ja mislim da najviše pomaže pogotovo društvenim životinjama, jest druženje s drugim društvenim životinjama. Osjećam se kao da sam postala uslužna životinja vlastitom psu. Vidjela sam papige koje to rade za ljude i ljude koji to rade za papige. Psi za slonove i slonovi za druge slonove. Ne znam za vas, ali meni često prosljeđuju internetske stranice neobičnih životinjskih prijateljstava. Mislim da je za to uvelike zaslužan Facebook, majmun koji usvaja mačku, doga koja usvaja siroto lane, krava koja se sprijateljila sa svinjom. Da ste me pitali prije osam-devet godina što mislim o tome, rekla bih vam da su to pretjerano sentimentalni i možda čak i na loš način preantropomorfizirani primjeri, a možda čak i iscenirani, a ono što vam sada mogu reći jest da ima nešto u ovome. Ovo je stvarno. Štoviše, neke zanimljive studije ističu razine oksitocina. To je vrsta "vezivnog hormona" koji otpuštamo za vrijeme spolne aktivnosti ili dojenja ili u blizini nekoga do koga nam je iznimno stalo. Razine oksitocina povećavaju se i kod ljudi i kod pasa koji brinu jedno o drugom ili uživaju u njihovu društvu. Druge studije pokazuju da se razine oksitocina povećavaju i u drugih životinjskih parova. Primjerice, kod koza i pasa koji su bili prijatelji i koji su se zajedno igrali, nakon toga razine su im naglo porasle.
I have a friend who really showed me that mental health is in fact a two-way street. His name is Lonnie Hodge, and he's a veteran of Vietnam. When he returned, he started working with survivors of genocide and a lot of people who had gone through war trauma. And he had PTSD and also a fear of heights, because in Vietnam, he had been rappelling backwards out of helicopters over the skids, and he was givena service dog named Gander, a labradoodle, to help him with PTSD and his fear of heights. This is them actually on the first day that they met, which is amazing, and since then, they've spent a lot of time together visiting with other veterans suffering from similar issues. But what's so interesting to me about Lonnie and Gander's relationship is about a few months in, Gander actually developed a fear of heights, probably because he was watching Lonnie so closely. What's pretty great about this, though, is that he's still a fantastic service dog, because now, when they're both at a great height, Lonnie is so concerned with Gander's well-being that he forgets to be scared of the heights himself.
Imam prijatelja koji mi je uistinu pokazao da je mentalno zdravlje uistinu dvosmjerna ulica. Ime mu je Lonnie Hodge i on je vijetnamski veteran. Kad se vratio, počeo je raditi s osobama koje su preživjele genocid i s onima koji su doživjeli ratne traume. Imao je PTSP i strah od visina jer se u Vijetnamu unatraške spuštao iz helikoptera, preko skija za slijetanje. Dobio je Gandera, psa pomagača, križanca pudlice i labradora, da mu pomogne nositi se s PTSP-om i strahom od visina. Ovo je s dana njihovog prvog susreta, što je divno, i od tada su proveli puno vremena skupa posjećujući druge veterane koji pate od sličnih problema. Ono što je meni posebno zanimljivo kod njihovog odnosa jest to što je nakon nekoliko mjeseci Gander razvio strah od visina, vjerojatno zato što je tako pomno promatrao Lonnija. Odlično je to što je on još uvijek sjajan pas pomagač jer sada kada se oboje nađu na velikim visinama, Lonnie je toliko zabrinut za Gandera da zaboravi na vlastiti strah.
Since I've spent so much time with these stories, digging into archives, I literally spent years doing this research, and it's changed me. I no longer look at animals at the species level. I look at them as individuals, and I think about them as creatures with their own individual weather systems guiding their behavior and informing how they respond to the world. And I really believe that this has made me a more curious and a more empathetic person, both to the animals that share my bed and occasionally wind up on my plate, but also to the people that I know who are suffering from anxiety and from phobias and all manner of other things, and I really do believe that even though you can't know exactly what's going on in the mind of a pig or your pug or your partner, that that shouldn't stop you from empathizing with them. The best thing that we could do for our loved ones is, perhaps, to anthropomorphize them.
Budući da sam toliko vremena provela među ovim pričama, kopajući po arhivima, doslovno sam provela godine na ovom istraživanju, to me je promijenilo. Na životinje više ne gledam kao na vrstu. Na njih gledam kao na pojedince, a o njima razmišljam kao o bićima s njihovim vlastitim vremenskim sustavima koji upravlja njihovim ponašanjem i informira o tome kako odgovaraju na svijet. Uistinu vjerujem da me je to učinilo znatiželjnijom i empatičnijom osobom, i prema životinjama koje spavaju u mom krevetu i povremeno mi skaču u tanjur, i prema ljudima za koje znam da pate od anksioznosti i fobija i drugih stvari. Uistinu vjerujem da iako ne možemo znati što se točno mota glavom svinje ili mopsa ili vašeg partnera, to vas ne bi trebalo omesti u suosjećanju s njima. Najbolja stvar koju možemo napraviti za svoje voljene možda je da ih antropomorfiziramo.
Charles Darwin's father once told him that everybody could lose their mind at some point. Thankfully, we can often find them again, but only with each other's help.
Darwinov otac jednom mu je rekao da svatko može izgubiti razum u određenom trenutku. Srećom, često ga možemo ponovno pronaći, ali samo uz tuđu pomoć.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)