MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN PETS

The last few years of COVID 19 pandemic has put a spotlight on human mental health issues. The awareness, support and avenues for help available have become like never before. However, this is all incomplete. We are so focused on human mental health that we never took a pause to consider the mental health of our most important companions – our pets.

The Pandemic increased the focus on importance of human mental health. This resulted in a sudden and exponential increase of number of pet adoptions. All over the internet you could read articles about how pets can work miracles for your mental health. Articles supported by scientific data, doctor interviews and personal accounts convinced everyone that owning a pet was the best way to survive the pandemic mentally. 

In this entire hullabaloo, we forgot the very main aspect of this scenario. Pets are not an object that can act as a panacea for all our problems. They are living beings that need love, care and support similar to us. They have emotions and feelings, they love others and their hearts get broken too! Most importantly, stress affects them as much as it does us. 

Yes! Pets have mental health issues.

Although animal brains are a lot different than ours in physiology and they are not capable of complex emotion display like us, but their mental health issue are as real as ours.

Types of Mental Health issues animals face:

1. Anxiety

2. Depression

3. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

4. Post-traumatic stress Disorder

5. Dementia

Below are a few symptoms of mental health issues in pets:

• Trembling

• Hiding

• Loss of appetite

• Reduced Weight

• Reduced activity

• Lethargy

• Destructive Behavior

Pets experience mental health issues if they are mistreated or their basic needs are ignored. A vast majority of people treat their pets as their property and not as a living being with emotions. Our pets need care, love, attention, socialization and mental enrichment to live a happy life. They need our love and support as much as we do theirs. We can prevent mental health issues in pets, if we treat them the right way.