Andrew Luescher, director of Purdue's Animal Behavior Clinic and one of about 30 board certified animal behaviorists in the country, estimates that 2 percent of the dog population has canine compulsive disorder. Dogs with the disease often display compulsive behaviors such as tail chasing, snapping the air, licking excessively, chewing with an empty mouth and barking monotonously without any change in volume or intonation.
Luescher has seen animals with severe stereotypical behaviors that affect their daily living. For example, one dog stopped drinking water because its shadow was a distraction.
"The longer people allow their pet's behavior to be ignored, the more difficult treatment can be," said Luescher, associate professor of veterinary clinical sciences at Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine. "Often, behaviors are misdiagnosed as neurological problems. Then the pet owners pay for expensive neurological tests before discovering it's a behavioral problem."
Luescher said a mistake animal owners can make is punishing a dog for behavioral problems, such as canine compulsive disorder.
"The disorder is already a stress- and anxiety-related problem," Luescher said. "Punishment increases that stress and anxiety to the point that the behavior only gets worse."
At the Animal Behavior Clinic, which is affiliated with Purdue's Center for the Human-Animal Bond, Luescher is overseeing two research projects that apply human treatment and diagnostic techniques to dogs.
The first project has recruited dogs throughout the country to participate in a clinical trial to determine how human medication for obsessive-compulsive disorder treats the condition in dogs. A drug, called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, has been successful in treating this disorder in humans.
'"/>
Contact: Amy Patterson-Neubert
apatterson@purdue.edu
765-494-9723
Purdue University
21-Oct-2002