Unlocking The Animal Mind: How Your Pet's Feelings Hold the Key to His Health and Happiness - Couverture souple

McMillan, Franklin D.; Lance, Kathryn

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1579548806 ISBN 13 : 9781579548803

Editeur : Rodale Press, 2004

Synopsis

In this pioneering work, veterinarian and animal researcher Dr. Franklin D. McMillan demonstrates conclusively - in countless examples from his own practice and scores of scientific studies-that animals experience complex feelings of love, hate, fear, even disappointment and hope, just as we do. Dr. McMillan shows readers: How the mind and its emotions deeply influence every aspect of an animal's health How ignoring or misunderstanding an animal's feelings can cause unintended suffering even to beloved pets Why boredom can be devastating to your pet's well-being - and how to avoid it. How animals treated with placebos can experience dramatic healing For the 152 million people in the United States living with pets, Dr. McMillan explains why understanding your pet's mind and emotions will enable you to make sure that your pet has the happiest, healthiest, most emotionally fulfilled life possible.

A propos du livre

Extrait

Chapter 1

WHY FEELINGS RULE

AN INTERESTING THING HAPPENED when I served as the scientific advisor for the movie Dr. Dolittle. We were using live animals along with animatronic, or robotic, animals. One day on the set we filmed a scene where Eddie Murphy--Dr. Dolittle--takes his dog, Lucky, to the vet. The crew lifted Lucky onto the examination table so Dr. Dolittle could look on as the actor playing the veterinarian did the exam. The director, Betty Thomas, called me aside and asked how to make the scene look realistic. When you examine a dog, do you start at the head and end with the tail, or the other way around? How should the veterinarian place the stethoscope on the dog's chest?

I turned back to watch as the film began to roll and soon found myself astonished at Lucky's performance. He responded precisely on cue and did everything absolutely flawlessly, from shooting a wary glance at the veterinarian to cocking his ear when Dr. Dolittle spoke to him. When the human actors screwed up, and the scene had to be reshot, Lucky performed perfectly again. I felt a pang of sympathy for all this little creature had to go through for the sake of his art.

As I stood there in awe of the dog's Oscar-worthy "Best Canine Performance in a Movie," I happened to glance over to the side of the set--and was flabbergasted to see the real Lucky patiently sitting next to his trainer's chair. I looked back at the dog on the table, then once again back at Lucky, and realized that while I was talking with the director, they had switched the animal Lucky with the animatronic Lucky. I had been admiring the intelligence of--and feeling sympathy for--a machine, a non-conscious collection of moving mechanical parts. I had been completely fooled.

This inxcident got me thinking. For decades, many scientists have maintained that live animals, like the animatronic dog in the film, are essentially unconscious machines. Our pets' demonstrations of love and loyalty, their fears and hurts, the very essence of their personalities, are--in the views of some--nothing more than programmed responses. The existence of animal consciousness, emotions, and feelings, these skeptics point out, has not yet met the strict standards necessary to establish scientific certainty. Although what they say about scientific certainty is true, I have built my professional career on my conviction that animals do indeed think and feel, and that their emotions are every bit as real to them as our human emotions are to us.

Indeed, for most of us, the existence of animal feelings is intuitively obvious. For example, I'm sure you have read or seen stories about animal rescues. A kitten is stuck in a drainpipe for 4 days as worried neighbors and emergency personnel devise ways to save it. A firefighter is lowered by helicopter above a frozen river in an attempt to save a trembling dog stranded on an ice floe. Dozens of other examples come easily to mind, from headlines about beached whales to stories on television news shows about otters covered in oil from a tanker spill. Most of these relatively common incidents require not just one but teams of rescuers, involve great expense, and often pose substantial risk to human life.

No one would take such pains and risks to rescue a robot--the very idea is ludicrous. Why, then, do we go to such trouble to save imperiled animals? We do it for one reason only: animal feelings. If animals did not have feelings, every one of these animals could simply be ignored. No feelings, no suffering. But we don't ignore them. We know that the brains of these imperiled animals are generating very powerful feelings of fear and distress, and we cannot simply leave them to suffer.

THE POWER OF FEELINGS

It is the motivation to deliver feelings of comfort to distressed and suffering creatures that drives the rescue of trapped or injured animals. It is what impels a firefighter to endanger his own life to save a terrified dog trapped in a burning building. It is the reason that dozens of people will spend large amounts of money and time trying to rescue stranded dolphins and whales. It is why many of us will stop and try to help an injured cat or dog by the side of the road. And it is the motivating force behind my and many others' decisions to go into veterinary medicine.

So whether we're conscious of it or not, what drives us to help these animals all comes down to the way they feel. They feel the pain, they feel the fear and panic, they feel the relief from discomfort when they are rescued. Indeed, the only thing that matters to any of these animals is to be rescued from the intense discomfort they are experiencing. They want to feel good. It is feelings--comfort, pleasure, discomfort, and suffering-- that matter. Feelings are the only thing that matters.

This same incredibly simple concept is what this book is about. Everything important in our animals' lives is experienced in the form of feelings. Nothing else is of concern to them. In caring for them, your pets want you only to attend to their feelings. The main idea of this book can be put into two words: Feelings rule.

In the years that I have practiced veterinary medicine, it has become clear to me that providing comfort to animals not only applies to medical care but is the goal of all animal care. I did not always understand this, however. After graduating from veterinary medical school at Ohio State University, I was fortunate to be chosen as one of the few to receive the most advanced post-graduate clinical training at the University of California at Davis, one of the top university veterinary teaching hospitals in the country. I ultimately reached the highest level of achievement in veterinary medicine: board-certified specialization in internal medicine. I represented the cutting edge of medical knowledge.

But something was missing from that knowledge. I was seeing many patients with disorders that weren't making sense. Diseases would come on, reoccur, and even go away for no known reason. The medical textbooks couldn't explain it. So I began asking the pet owners questions that also weren't in the textbooks--questions about their pets' living circumstances and emotional states when their illnesses began or went away.

PUTTING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER

An amazing picture began to emerge as I continued to gather information. I had owners keep diaries of their pets' symptoms. With their help, I discovered that one of the most powerful influences in all of animal health and disease was not a physical entity at all but a mental factor: the emotions deep inside the animals' minds. Once I began asking pet owners the right questions, that missing piece of the puzzle revealed itself.

For instance, there was the Great Dane whose skin periodically broke out in terrible boils. It was only after his owners began keeping a diary that we discovered the boils occurred only after his owners had loud arguments. Ginger, a tortoiseshell cat, had frequent diarrhea and vomiting--but only when her owners left home for a few days. Another cat, Cosby, experienced bladder problems when Chaz, the other, more dominant, cat in the house, picked on him. Even obesity--which most vets and pet owners assume is simply due to overeating--often turns out to be a result of emotional problems, just as it is in people. And I encountered many animals that developed a variety of illnesses when a companion--human or animal--died. Unfortunately, the "cutting edge" of medicine did not address the role of the animal mind in illness. When I started tending to the emotional lives of my patients, I found that I could help many health disorders more successfully than when I used only the standard textbook approaches. But something else--far more important--also occurred. My animal patients' enjoyment of life was greatly improved. Making their lives fun and relieving the painful emotions of loneliness, boredom, fear, and anxiety resulted in much happier animals.

A Vet's-Eye View

I cannot recall making the decision to become a veterinarian. It actually predates my earliest memories. I never wanted to be anything else. I'd have to say that being a veterinarian was always in me--as much as a person can be instilled at birth with a calling, that's what happened to me. Having the opportunity to live out my dream has been a blessing that I am grateful for every day, because caring for animals is the greatest privilege I could possibly know.

Including the time before attending veterinary school, I have worked in an animal hospital for the past 30 years. There are few places on earth where one can be closer to animals or develop a better feel for what goes on in their complex minds. I encounter every kind of distress and suffering--in the form of illness, injury, abandonment, homelessness, emotional disturbance, and all types of physical and emotional abuse. I also see happy, well-cared-for animals who are living enjoyable, fun, and fulfilling lives. In all of this, I witness the incredible emotional bond between pets and their human companions.

For three decades, I have sat face to face with animals who have needs and desires. And what these years of experience have taught me is that animals want what we want. They want comfort, peace of mind, and happiness. Everything they do is designed to achieve those goals. Knowing this is the key to enjoying a wonderful, rewarding relationship with the pets you love.

I came to see that focusing on the animals' feelings is more than an important aspect of animal care--it is the only aspect of care that matters. By ignoring the immense importance of the feelings that animals experience every moment of their lives, all fields of animal care had been missing the boat. As logical as it seems, though, putting feelings back into animal care isn't an easy task. In fact, it was only recently that the mind was even considered as a part of human health.

This separation of the mental aspects of animals and people from the physical began some 400 years ago with the philosopher Rene Descartes. At that time, Descartes wanted to study the human body, but the Catholic Church disapproved of any close examination of God's handiwork. Descartes responded by dividing human existence into two realms: the physical, which he would study, and the mental/spiritual, which would remain the exclusive domain of the Church. This artificial construct, dividing the mental from the physical, has dominated virtually all scientific and medical thought to this day.

The situation with regard to animals has been an almost complete split between the physical, observable animal body and the animal mind, which many people continue to deny experiences any feelings at all. If you're like most pet owners, by now you're probably exclaiming, "But that's not true!" After all, you've seen a whole range of feelings in your beloved animal companions. And, as we shall see, this time it's you, not the "experts," who are correct.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND FEELINGS

As far as we know now, feelings are conscious mental experiences, and to have them requires consciousness. Let's look at one common mental experience: the feeling of pain. Few people--either nonscientists or scientists--would deny that animals feel pain. The lion cub I held in my arms who whimpered sadly was expressing pain. His owner had been feeding him an unbalanced diet, which resulted in brittle bones that were broken in many places. He was in pain in virtually every part of his body.

The 90-£d dog lying in the middle of the street was in pain. When I tried to pick her up to take her to my animal hospital, she whipped her head around and bit hard into my face, tearing open my cheek. We found out later that she had a broken back from being hit by a car, and I had touched her fractured spine. Twenty-eight years later, the scar on my face remains glaring testimony to the existence of animal pain.

In every way we can tell, pain in animals acts virtually identically to pain in people. In the course of my day, I might pull a big thorn out of dog's paw, give an injection, squeeze an abscess on a cat's toe, feel the swelling around a broken bone, put pressure on an overly full bladder, press against a loose tooth, bend a swollen knee joint, touch the surface of an eye, and feel the back of a dog with a slipped disc. In every case, the animal will respond in a way that is very similar to the way a person would respond under the same conditions: by flinching, protecting the painful body part, crying out, moaning, or remaining inactive. In all but speech, an animal's reaction to pain is virtually indistinguishable from a person's.

Ironically, the scientists who deny that animals feel pain are often the ones who, through their work, affirm the existence of animal pain. Pain researchers who use animals to study and develop better ways to treat human pain are basing their research on the assumption that animals do feel pain as we do (if they didn't, then applying this research to humans would be completely useless). Today, with the mountain of evidence accumulated from animal pain research, denying that animals feel pain--that they hurt--is simply absurd.

The Black Box of the Mind

Today mind/body medicine is on the leading edge of the healing arts--for humans. Unfortunately for animals, many still regard animals as having very limited mental lives. This situation is partly due to concern by early 20th- century researchers in psychology and animal behavior that their fields were not accepted as "hard" or "real" science.

In a hugely influential paper addressing animal and human behavior, the famous psychological theorist J. B. Watson entreated his fellow psychologists to abandon concern with such a vague and nonscientific concept as consciousness. Unlike the objects of study in physics and chemistry, consciousness and its associated notions (mind, emotions, feelings) could not be directly observed, measured, or verified. Watson thus implored those in his field to concentrate solely on behavior, which could be seen, measured, and verified. In other words, Watson proposed that all animal--as well as human--behavior should be treated exclusively as a simple stimulus-response reaction, and animals should be regarded as simple machines without thought or feelings.

Revue de presse

“This unusual, well-written, and insightful book explores the role of complex emotions and "human" feelings in animals. McMillan is a veterinarian with a special interest in the mind-body connection. His two primary concepts--the Comfort Zone and the four-part Pet Pleasure Principle--are designed to recognize the underlying feelings and emotions that fuel animal behavior and form the foundation for guiding their well-being. His explanations of feelings go beyond the simple instinct so often attributed as the cause of animal behaviors to prove that animals experience fear, loneliness, joy, grief, anticipation, and boredom. Increasing pleasure, including safety, and decreasing mental and physical discomfort are the goals of any animal, and should be of its owner, too. By using the quality-of-life factors McMillan defines with the help of veteran coauthor Lance, and his three-step program for mental wellness, pet owners will acquire powerful tools for keeping pets happy. Its successful blend of personal stories, lucid explanations, case studies, and specific problem-solving techniques makes this a standout in the crowded field of animal-care manuals. Lauren Roberts” — Booklist

“Unlocking the Animal Mind: How Your Pet's Feelings Hold the Key to His Health and Happiness McMillan, Franklin ISBN: 1-57-954880-6 Rodale Press Paperback $14.95 2004/10 Making the case that feelings-"comfort, pleasure, discomfort, and suffering"-are the only things that matter to pets, veterinarian McMillan demonstrates a variety of ways that pet owners can observe the impact of emotions on their pets' health and use such information to better the quality of their pets' lives. McMillan's conceptual keys to pet behavior are the "Comfort Zone," an animal's mental state in the absence of unpleasant feelings, and the "Pet Pleasure Principle" (with thanks to philosopher Jeremy Bentham), which describes an animal's choice of behavior based on what will bring it the most pleasure. Using numerous examples from his practice, he shows how these concepts work (and work together): feeling out of the Comfort Zone can be an "early-warning system that a potential threat exists," for example, while an animal back in its Comfort Zone will spend its energy seeking greater pleasure. A helpful chart entitled "Why Your Pet Ain't Misbehavin' " lists painful emotions a pet might experience (e.g., boredom, anxiety) and the undesirable behaviors such emotions often cause (e.g., howling, chewing furniture). McMillan's thesis is, he acknowledges, an "incredibly simple concept," and it probably doesn't deserve all the pages it gets, but those seeking greater connection with their pets will find it enlightening.” —Publishers Weekly

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Rodale Press
• Date d'édition: 2004
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1579548806
• ISBN 13: 9781579548803
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible