Re: Dogs and PTSD; The fact people have the gumption to tell you, A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL who spent HOURS studying this exact thing (it’s required you take animal psych!), you’re wrong is incredibly infuriating. I commend you for being calm under fire and it’s exactly why I will never become a veterinarian myself. People who act like they know everything because they asked Dr. Google about it and read an article about mice being used in ptsd-LIKE treatments really just get my goat.

drferox:

The frustrating part is people not reading or ignoring the previous responses. Disagreement is fine, science wouldn’t advance without it, but name calling is not.

If someone comes up with a set of diagnostic criteria for canine PTSD to differentiate it from other behaviours (generalised anxiety, increased reactivity, poor socialisation, misdirected aggression, learned fear responses, etc) then maybe the science will change. But if it’s dependent on an MRI, for example, I still can’t say a dog had PTSD without that MRI.

And it’s not discounting a dog’s ability to think or feel or experience the world. It’s just that I don’t have any access to what is going on inside the brain, only the behaviours that are shown, so that is what I have to label.