Can Dogs Have Schizophrenia?

[KingofCamelot]

Title says most of it. To elaborate, I'll use one of my own dogs as an example. Shes a 7 and a half year old Border Collie. I got her when she was 2-3 years old, from the local SPCA. The possibility that her former owner may have abused her was mentioned by the SPCA staff. Now time to list the odd things she does that makes me feel like she suffers from some mental illness:

• She seems to do odd mood swings. In the mornings and late at night, she is quite cuddly, but randomly during the day she will growl at the slightest pet.

• She often times used to stare at her reflection in windows and mirrors. While my other dog paid absolutely no attention to such reflections, even if you made her look straight at her reflection she never showed any signs of recognition of anything being there. My dog's obsession with her reflection took on a level to which it would seem she thought there was another dog there. She often stared at the reflection in the glass door, and if you opened the door she would run outside and apparently look where her reflection was, almost looking for a dog. She would also go from silently staring at the reflection to growling with bared teeth and pawing at the window. When she got into her obsessed staring, you could barely drag her away with out her throwing a growling fit. More recently she has stopped staring at reflections for the most part, but will still sometimes do it. She now appears to have a better understanding of mirrors, and will watch you in them. I know she is watching because she will respond to visual things you do.(such as picking up a ball)

• My dog is also extremely obsessed with random objects. She has some favorite object types, such as anything that looks like an animal, and she also will obsess over practically any candle. Many of the objects seem to be randomly chosen. When she does this, it is similar to the reflection thing in the way that she devotes herself to it, and sometimes gets angry and growls and occasionally barks at these objects. She will even lie down and sleep next to them to keep a watch on them. When she lies down next to them, if you walk by she jumps up and gets back up close to them. She will sometimes pickup the candles and move off a table to the floor, and lie down next to them. If you hide the object when she isn't looking, she will just find a new object to obsess about.

The veternarian suggested sedatives when told of the problem, but these seemed to have no effect on the odd behavior. Another thing to note is that she is afraid of fly swaters (possibly from past abuse?).

Well, any psychologists out there wanna try and diagnose my dog?

 

[CycloWizard]

Apparently, animals can suffer from just about all of the same mental problems people can, though it may be expressed differently. There's actually quite a bit of research in this area, though I don't really have access to the journals. That said, having had numerous dogs as family pets in the past, I don't think any of the things you listed are very strange behavior for a dog. Dogs aren't necessarily the brightest animals, and these symptoms may just be your dog trying to figure out what's going on.

A friend of mine worked at an animal shelter and used to adopt dogs if they were going to be put to sleep (bad idea - he has lots of animals now). One that was very badly abused runs any time anyone but him comes into the room. She then urinates on the floor if you go too close to her. Hard to explain, but it's pretty clear she has some mental issues as a result of her abuse.

 

[JJ650]

I have often heard that certain breeds tend to be more neurotic than most. Some think it's from inbreeding for the desirbale traits. We know in people this can cause mental problems (look at Arkansas for example Just kidding!)
We used to have a Cocker-Spaniel and he was a complete spaz but our neighbors was the calmest laid back cocker I have ever seen. I have a mix (lab-cocker) and she is antsy like a cocker sometimes and then at others laid back like a lab usually is. Maybe it is because of past abuse or could be just a few loose screws.

 

[MrDudeMan]

i dont know what to say really, but i do think its pretty neat that you care enough about your dog to take the time to study her long enough to notice these behaviors.

 

[Jeff7]

Some animals do have odd behaviors. My one cat has a few mildly obsessive behaviors. He started pawing at the water dish, so that he could see the water level clearly. After several weeks of that, he also will paw at his dry food dish before eating. He'll even occasionally paw at the dish of canned food when he gets that once a day, though he's too busy just chowing down on it like he's never going to get food again.
And after he's done with the canned food, he goes downstairs, sits under a table or on a rug, and starts yowling a few times. It's about the same "song" every day, but with slight variations each time.
No idea why he does it, but he just does it.

Another cat we adopted had been kept in a small room for most of its life, and not tended to often. The litter box was rarely cleaned, and the room was just dirty. When we took the cat in here, we first gave it two baths, which she didn't seem to mind. It was probably nice to get the matted fur cleaned, and get some attention at the same time.
But her litterbox behavior was obsessive - she would carefully select and prepare a spot, and then bury it very carefully. It was a lengthy, painstaking process, sometimes a taking few minutes. She had adapted to the long periods with a disgusting litterbox, and retained those habits even with one that was tended to regularly.

Animals don't have our idea of language either. They probably think more in terms of concepts and emotions. Some patterns that to us, with our ordered, language-oriented thinking, seem odd. But to the animal, it may make perfect logical sense.
Or, it could be a metal disorder too. They've got organic brains just like we've got, and they can go on the fritz too.
The random growling could be paranoia, a glimpse of a memory of abuse.
The reflection - some animals react differently to reflections. My cats don't care about reflections. Some cats will attack reflections, and some will befriend their reflection.
The object to obsess about - if she was abused before, it's possible that, if she ever found something that was fun, it wouldn't be in her life for long, so she learned to like it a lot while she could. Or maybe it's her imaginary friend for awhile. If no one else likes her, hey, maybe this rubber ball will be her friend.

 

[EightySix Four]

Hehe, my little brother when he was very little bumped his head on a mirror, and attacked mirrors for 2 months after words.

On the subject of mental disorders, I think animals just pick up on some things and won't ever change them. My neighbors dog when it's done eating, comes over, puts his paw on your leg, looks directly at you, and burps. Then begins to kind of roll around on the ground for a minute. Gets up and walks away like nothing... oddest behavior ever, but funny when you've never see it before.

There was also the video going around the net of the dog attacking it's own leg when it got close to a bone, he would bite it, it would go back, and it would move it's leg forward slowly and repeat the process.

 

[ssvegeta1010]

In short, Border Collies have very strange quirks.

 

[KingofCamelot]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I didn't realize how many animals have odd little quirks.

I think my dog seems so odd because my other dog is so mellow. On one hand you have Shana (the odd dog), who is obsessive, paranoid, and down right weird. On the other hand you have Lexie (the normal dog), who is calm, loves to play, and loves attention. When you compare the two I guess it just makes Shana's oddities stand out more. Just some things I'd like to add to the list of weird things Shana does:

She treats my mother as the human equivalent to an Alpha dog. She follows my mother everywhere. She literally worships the ground my mother walks on. Its to the point where she doesn't play unless my mother is there. You can throw the ball and she won't even blink twice unless my mother is outside with her. Lexie, being normal, will play any time. However if I try to play ball with Lexie without my mother around, Shana tries to stop it. She will run out, steal the ball from Lexie, and promptly take it back inside so that we can't play ball. She only does this when my mother is not around. Also, oddly, she mainly does the earlier mentioned things with my mother around. If my mother is out of town, Shana will rarely do the odd things I mentioned. However, the second my mother returns, Shana goes right back to her candles and growling at them.

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The object to obsess about - if she was abused before, it's possible that, if she ever found something that was fun, it wouldn't be in her life for long, so she learned to like it a lot while she could. Or maybe it's her imaginary friend for awhile. If no one else likes her, hey, maybe this rubber ball will be her friend.

Interesting concept, I hadn't thought of that before. One thing I forgot to mention was she really likes stuffed animals. Mainly little soda can sized ones. She got a hold of a little stuffed bunny once, and we let her keep it because she liked it so much. She would carry it everywhere, holding it in her mouth not unlike a puppy. She never chewed on it or did anything to harm it, she just liked to carry it around and put it beside here when she decided to lie down. Occasionally she would play with it, tossing it around in her paws, and she wagged her tail and was quite happy with doing this. I felt really bad when we had to throw out the stuffed bunny, it just got too nasty being taken outside in the dirt. Between the dog saliva and the dirt within a few weeks that stuffed bunny was long beyond sanitary.

 

[rivan]

While many dogs have these odd quirks, many of the issues can be overcome.

I'm not anything close to expert enough to talk about it - and this may sound a little dumb - but give "The Dog Whisperer" a watch sometime. I've seen some pretty big behaviour issues broken on that show, most times by changes in the owner's behaviour.

That said, I've also seen a kitchen remodeled in 2 days on DIY, so I realize how much good editing can gloss over.