Acral lick in dogs derives from grooming, while compulsive tail-chasing, light/shadow chasing and fly snapping appear to derive from predatory roots. Humans, as a hunter/gatherer species, tend to develop compulsions derived from concerns for personal safety and the gathering or collecting of things, including sometimes the collection of animals. In dogs, these include grooming, predatory behavior, ingestion, and locomotion. Ethologically speaking, compulsive disorders in animals and humans derive from normal species-typical, hard-wired behavior patterns that are necessary for survival. Factors involved in the development of CCD are analogous to those involved in the development of OCD, specifically a) that there appear to be genetic underpinnings (breed and familial), b) affected individuals tend to have an anxious personality, c) seem to be responding to environmental stress, d) may start with a displacement behavior in response to stress, e) the behavior becomes fixed and displayed in the absence of the original stressor. In comparison, between 1–3% of the human population suffers from what could be termed 'classical' OCDs. Compulsive disorders are now well recognized in the veterinary community as having multiple expressions and affecting many species, though there is reluctance to apply a prefix 'obsessive' because animal obsessions are impossible to prove.īetween 2–5% of dogs seen by veterinary behaviorists are diagnosed with canine compulsive disorder (CCD). Specifically, they noted similar development and expression and found an almost identical response of affected dogs to medications used to treat human OCD. Their studies focused on the canine compulsion known as 'canine acral lick,' which they regarded as having face validity and predictive validity as an animal model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (compulsive handwashing) in humans. The discovery that dogs may suffer from an equivalent condition was first pointed out by Goldberger & Rappaport (1991) and Rappaport et al. A diagrammatic representation of this obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) cycle may be found on the website (VIN editor: The webpage was unavailable as of 9/1/15). Unfortunately, the obsessions all too frequently reappear, and the cycle is propagated. Compulsions are those actions that result from the obsession, and the act of performing them brings temporary relief. In humans, obsessions are constantly recurring thoughts which intrude into a person's mind and cause anxiety unless acted upon.

Ocd dog pica