In animals, the former is not an option so it is replaced with environmental enrichment. In humans there are two options: cognitive therapy and pharmacotherapy. The question is what to do about compulsive disorders? How should they be treated? It is predictable that pigs, who spend their days rooting around foraging engage in a compulsion like chain chewing/bar biting and that birds, which preen their feathers as a matter of survival in the wild, end up with a compulsive disorder like feather picking. It is predictable that horses, who spend the majority of their time in nature grazing and ambling around, will develop consummatory and locomotor compulsions, like cribbing and weaving/stall walking, respectively. Dogs tend to develop compulsive disorders related to the natural behaviors of grooming (ALD) and predation (light/shadow chasing and tail chasing).Ĭats develop compulsive disorders related to grooming (psychogenic alopecia) and consummatory behavior (wool-sucking/pica). The particular compulsive behavior that is expressed depends on species and breed predilections and the experiences and programming of the individual. An environmental component, such as a situation of high conflict, seems necessary to cause one or another natural behavior to go awry and be expressed compulsively. Having a genetic propensity for a behavior does not mean that an individual will necessarily manifest it. The anxious nature may be inherited, along with breed- and species-typical behaviors. African grey parrots, notorious for their high-strung nature, feather pick more often than other species of psittacine birds. Middle-aged dogs with ALD seem more anxious and vigilant than their non-compulsive peers. Cribbing horses seem more actively anxious than non cribbers. People, especially children, sometimes have compulsions that occur without a preceding obsession, so even if animals don’t obsess that doesn’t mean they can’t have a compulsive disorder.Īnimals exhibiting compulsive disorders tend to be more anxious and highly strung than their more laidback counterparts. It is impossible to prove that animals obsess but that doesn’t mean they don’t. Engagement in the compulsion relieves the anxiety, and so the cycle is propagated. Later a constantly recurring thought (an obsession) occurs that causes escalating anxiety. In people with OCD-and by inference in animals exhibiting compulsive behavior-the cycle goes something like this: Anxiety leads to engagement in a repetitive behavior (a compulsion), which affords temporary relief. Not only did dogs with ALD respond to SSRIs but so did tail chasing and shadow chasing.Ĭats with wool-sucking/pica or psychogenic alopecia also responded well to these medications, as did feather picking in birds, cribbing in horses, bar biting and chain chewing in pigs, and an assortment of compulsive behaviors in zoo animals. Behavior after behavior confirmed the OCD concept by responding affirmatively to treatment with anti-compulsive medication. Veterinary behaviorists quickly extended the concept to include pretty much all behaviors formerly labeled stereotypies in animals. For the rest of that decade, Rapoport promoted the concept of acral lick dermatitis as a model of human obsessive compulsive disorder. Rapoport showed that acral lick dermatitis in dogs responded to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft to the same extent and over the same time course as human obsessive compulsive disorder patients.

Rapoport’s 1992 article, however, changed the way we think about repetitive disorders and altered our approach to treatment.

I always believed the mechanism underlying these behaviors was essentially the same with, perhaps, certain species variations imposed on a common underlying theme.Įarly on, I was convinced that stereotypies were mediated by nature’s own morphine-like substances, the endorphins, as morphine antagonists blocked the behaviors I studied in horses and dogs. I also had some interest in feather-picking in birds, chain chewing and bar biting in pigs and the plethora of repetitive disorders shown by zoo animals. Later, I broadened my interest to include acral lick dermatitis and tail chasing in dogs and wool-sucking/pica and psychogenic alopecia in cats. My first observations were in horses engaging in “stall vices” like cribbing and weaving and stall walking. I’ve studied such behavior for nearly 30 years, the first 10 of which I believed I was studying stereotypies. Before that, repetitive disorders of species were referred to as “stereotypies.” Judith Rapoport, et al, in the Archives of General Psychiatry (1992), the term “compulsive disorder” has entered the veterinary lexicon. Since a publication by child psychiatrist Dr.

Pica definition horses