Help for Traumatized animals

[Catherine]

We now understand that animals can suffer from trauma as much as any human. They have all the symptoms of PTSD and respond to treatment the way a human would.
Animals that have been orphaned or hurt are damaged emotionally by what happened. Even if they are not physically damaged they will fail to thrive if the emotional part of the injury is not dealt with.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-26/h...ed-animals


We have known for years that animals feel and suffer emotionally. It is significant that researchers are now acknowledging this suffering and treating it properly. We didn't acknowledge that humans suffered trauma and emotional damage. For years we denied the "wounds" that we couldn't see. Recognizing and treating animal trauma will benefit humans as it increases our knowledge of how trauma works. In return human research will benefit animals once we admit that the suffering is essentially the same.  This is a very hopeful situation. It won't put an end to animal trauma, but it will help them get treatment.

[LPC]

Fascinating article. For us on this forum, the article didn't need to tell us about animals feeling emotions like people. But it is interesting in a different way: it shows that the scientific community is taking the issue more seriously than before. It is also wonderful that the places described offer the facilities for animals to recover from severe stress.

[Tobi]

I am glad to see emotional trauma in animals is being listened to, and that there are facilities to help them. I often meet people with "rescue dogs", who are living very nicely, and loved by their people. Yet their people often say, "He is always scared of.....sticks/men/children/being left alone/cars/etc, and there seems to be nothing I can do about it." They mention that they don't really know what happened to their dog before he was rescued, but put two and two together by what they observe.
In such cases, the dog has a great life, but will always show the scars of what happened in the past, when there is a trigger.

With Misty, it was food. She was food-obsessed and extremely protective of her food re: other people apart from me, and other dogs. That was a mark from her past -and not an unmanageable one -but told the story of her street-dog days.

[Catherine]

I agree, we already knew that animals have feelings. What I like is hearing that scientists are acknowledging their feelings.
That means they will be working to help traumatized animals.

Maybe some day they will find a way to help dogs get over their reactions to things. I can understand that Misty had food anxiety. She must have done without so often that she couldn't let go of the fear of going hungry. Many rescue animals have fears that owners know about, but don't know how to fix. Wouldn't it be great if they could help a dog get over fears.

Wouldn't it be great if, after years of treating trauma in animals, scientists would wake up to the fact that they cause trauma to animals. They cause lab dogs to have anxieties that never get treated. It should make them uncomfortable to wound one set of dogs while trying to heal another.