LAUREL Braitman is an American science historian and author of the new book, Animal Madness. Laurel spent three years travelling the world in search of emotionally disturbed animals and found numerous stories of recovery: parrots that learn how to stop plucking their feathers, dogs that cease licking their tails raw, polar bears that stop swimming in compulsive circles, and great apes that benefit from the help of human psychiatrists.

We asked Laurel a few questions about the madness of animals.

1. Why do animals get anxious?
Nonhuman animals often get anxious for the same reasons we do. That is, we all tend to feel stressed or worried in situations that are not good for us…and the bad feelings encourage us to move away from whatever the trouble is or change our situation for the better. The problem however, is that some of us, human or elephant or hedgehog or otherwise, may start to feel anxious in situations that aren’t actually dangerous… such as when we see men in hats or have to enter an elevator.

2. Should owners be better trained?
Yes. But emotional thunderstorms in our animals aren’t always our fault. Thankfully though, whatever the cause, we can usually help.

3. What led you into this line of work?
I fell in love with someone who was deeply unstable. He was a dog.

4. What techniques can we apply to help worried pets?
Basically many of the same therapeutics that help us: exercise, time with other social animals, a satisfying job to do, an environment they can trust, sometimes psychopharmaceuticals, behaviour therapy…

5. Are zoos bad?
Zoos are fascinating places full of people who are committed to animal welfare, sometimes (especially in the case of zookeepers) at great personal cost or sacrifice, but I think they are places for humans, not other animals, and I believe we’ve outgrown them as an institution where education about non-human nature should take place.

ENDS

“Braitman wants us to take animals seriously to see them as individuals with life histories and psychologies as dramatic and intense as our own… [She] has an absolute, not a comparative, sense of the animal soul,” –JOSHUA ROTHMAN, The New Yorker

MIT PhD in the history of science, Laurel Braitman has written for Pop Up Magazine, The New Inquiry, Orion, and a variety of other publications. She is a TED Fellow and an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Laurel lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California, and can be reached at AnimalMadness.com.