Salon has published an excerpt from Laurel Braitman’s book Animal Madness, in which she notes that the U.S. market for pet pharmaceuticals was $6.68 billion in 2011. Braitman interviews experts in the burgeoning industry of pet psychiatric medications, including the researcher/author of The Well-Adjusted Cat, who says drugs help pets get better “from the inside out.” Braitman discusses how antidepressants can ease “separation anxiety” in dogs and describes her own experiences giving Valium to her dog to dull his “thunderstorm anxiety.”
Braitman indicates that psychiatric medications in pets “are more successful if they are used in conjunction with behavior-modification training,” and reminds readers that the goal is to “taper off the medication as soon as possible.”
Do our pets need Prozac? Are we making them feel better, or ourselves? (Salon, June 21, 2014)
