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Man's best

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friend could
be having more than just a rough day.

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Since the pandemic,

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prescribing our pups, Prozac
and other antidepressants are on the rise.

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As Stat's Sarah Owermohle explains,

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this might have more to do
with their owners than them.

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Sarah Why are we seeing an increase

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in anti-anxiety prescriptions for pets.

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Spends on who you talk to?

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If it's the pet's doctors or your own?

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Veterinarians will say that it has to do
with the rise in rescues and adoptions

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during the pandemic,
especially those coming from rural places

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to cities
where there's more capacity to adopt.

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But then they also say and human doctors
seem to agree with this,

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that this has to do with us

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talking more about mental health

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in general and acknowledging
our own mental health crises

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and the anxiety and depression that's
been, you know, a big part of our lives.

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There's also, of course,
our lifestyle changes from the pandemic

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and now returning to work
after the pandemic,

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having an impact on both us as humans
and potentially our pets.

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But, Sarah, it seems as if the pandemic
has been over for a while.

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Is this problem growing? Has it plateaued?

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Where are we now with pets
being put on drugs that humans take?

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Well,
a lot of people are still adjusting back

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to the way of life or if it's ever going
back to the way of life before COVID.

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And I think this also has to do
with our own mental health crisis.

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Our mental health has not plateaued
or decreased our rates of depression

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and anxiety.

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One of the men I spoke to for this
article said,

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you know, it's not a rubber band
that steps back.

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It's more like a sock
that's been pulled and loosens.

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So it's our own mental
health has not really returned

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and mean we're talking
more about ours and our pets.

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So if I'm hearing you correctly,
it sounds as if the behaviors

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of the human owners
are impacting the pets reactions.

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Sometimes.

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I mean,

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the doctors I spoke to

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were careful to say, you know, depression
and anxiety are not contagious.

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Just because you are depressed does not
mean, you know, your animal could be.

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But some of our behaviors,
like not going out, not socializing

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or our anxiety about new people
can be things that our pets pick up on.

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They are very empathetic.

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Another thing, of course,
is that a lot of these animals, again,

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are reacting to a lot of stimuli
and a new place.

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They were rescued.

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You don't know where they came from
before this.

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And some people don't have the bandwidth
to train that animal

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or to give them sort of the environment
that they would be most comfortable in.

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So with that in mind, pets are on the rise

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getting medications for anxiety issues
that humans are.

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Are they getting the same type of drugs,
the same drugs as humans?

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Should we worry about
a shortage of like Prozac?

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They are they are
literally getting the same drugs as us.

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Prozac is one of the most popular ones,
so that's usually the one

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that dogs and cats get started on.

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When, you know, a veterinarian starts
thinking about this,

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there is a pet form of it,
a little chewy tablet, but a lot of times

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it's cheaper
to put them on the very same thing as us.

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Zoloft, Prozac, the other ones.

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We recognize there's not risks right now
for our drugs

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to go on shortage just because,
you know, our dogs and cats are on them.

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But each of these medications
has been on shortage before.

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So last was the beginning of the pandemic.

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ADHD medications
recently were on shortages.

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And so there's always a risk that,

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you know, the stock could run out
for both humans and pets at some point.

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Sarah, what can we expect in the future
when it comes

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to understanding more
about animal behavioral health?

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Well, it's a really quickly growing field,
I think.

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And so we've we've thought about animal
behavioral health in terms of, you know,

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really we have two dogs, for instance,
who are biting, who are dangerous.

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But now people are talking about it

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in different ways
and they're talking about it

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in terms of not just what animals can do
to help out our behavior or health like

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pet therapies,
but what we can do for them.

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I think also there's some parallels
to the human world that we're seeing here,

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the fact that it is much easier
to get on a medicine that can help

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with your anxiety or depression
than it is to get a more expensive service

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that could take a long time, like therapy.

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And so I think that we're going
to continue

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to see some of the very same things
playing out in pet behavioral health

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that we're already seeing in human
behavioral health.

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But I do think this field is growing
very quickly.

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Stat reporter Sarah Owermohle
thank you so much for joining us.

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Thank you for having me.

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For daily access to Boston Globe today.

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