Can Animals Go Mad?
15:36 minutes
Do dogs get depressed? Can parrots suffer from PTSD? Most pet owners will argue that animals are far from the unfeeling “automatons” described by the philosopher Rene Descartes. Animal Madness author Laurel Braitman explores the complex inner lives of animals and discusses how their mental state may not be too far from our own. (Read an excerpt from Animal Madness here.)
Laurel Braitman is the author of Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves (Simon and Schuster, 2014) in San Fransisco, California.
Alexa Lim was a senior producer for Science Friday. Her favorite stories involve space, sound, and strange animal discoveries.