There is ever-growing interest in the ways in which a wide variety of nonhuman animals (animals) deal with the ups and downs of their lived experiences in many different contexts. In his new edited book, a third edition of Mental Health and Well-being in Animals, veterinarian Frank McMillan and his colleagues summarize how recent research has yielded an enormous amount of information about animal mental health and well-being across many different species. The book’s description aptly summarizes what this valuable collection is all about: “Studies on animal stress, distress, emotions, psychological trauma, and mental disorders have brought to light insights on how to care for and treat the animal mind.”
Here’s what Dr. McMillan told me about this landmark book, a collection of incredibly valuable essays on diverse animals with wide-ranging appeal to those who work on the ground with animals in need and those with more academic leanings.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you assemble the essays for Mental Health and Well-being in Animals, and how did you select the contributors?
Franklin McMillan: The original idea for the book came from there being a glaring lack of attention to the emotional well-being of animals, particularly within the veterinary profession. A specialty of clinical animal behavior had been established in the U.S. in the 1990s and in Europe in the 2010s, but the focus was almost exclusively on correcting unwanted behavior in companion animals, with only minimal attention to the emotional distress and suffering underlying the behaviors. The harm of this approach is that many undesirable behaviors can be “corrected” without tending to the emotional troubles driving them. For example, a dog chained alone outside and barking for human attention and companionship can be “corrected” by using an anti-bark collar, but that does nothing to alleviate the emotional distress of the social deprivation, and may even make it worse. For myself and some colleagues, it had become evident that mental health and well-being should, as in humans, receive the attention they deserve.
I wanted the book to address the wide variety of animals capable of experiencing not only the negative mental states of emotional distress and suffering, but also the positive emotions of enjoyment and comfort. To do this, I selected the contributors for the book for their expertise in as many species and animal living situations as possible, from companion animals, to animals on farms, in shelters, in research laboratories, and many others. I made especially sure that these experts had shown in their scholarly work an explicit interest in the mental health and well-being of the animals they worked with.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
FM: As a veterinarian, I became increasingly attuned to the mental lives of the animals I cared for, realizing that their quality of life was impacted not only by their physical health, but as much or more so by their mental health and emotional well-being. Everything that matters to the animal, and what contributes to a life being a good life or a bad life, is the mental experiences of pleasantness and unpleasantness. The good life is made up of a preponderance of pleasant experiences and minimal unpleasant experiences, which include those of an emotional nature, like joy, excitement, fear, and loneliness, or those of a physical nature, like pain, hunger, and nausea.
MB: Who do you hope to reach?
FM: I hope to reach all who care for and about animals, scientists and nonscientists alike. This would include animal welfare scientists, veterinarians and veterinary staff, clinical animal behaviorists and trainers, animal shelter workers, pet guardians, and even district attorneys who prosecute cases of animal cruelty. While the book is written at a scholarly level, it is very accessible to all those with a high school level education.
MB: What are some of the topics you consider and what are some of your major messages?
FM: The enjoyments as well as the distresses and sufferings that animals can experience come in a vast array of forms. I wanted the chapters in the book to reflect this diversity. To accomplish this, I chose topics such as happiness and fun in animals, quality of life, the importance of social relationships, fostering mental wellness during upbringing and throughout life, distress and suffering, psychological trauma and resilience, mental health issues in the aging pet, farmed animals and horses, elderly pet animals, captive birds, reptiles, animals in zoos and aquariums, nutritional factors in animal mental health, the relationship between physical and mental health, and treatment options for emotional distress in animals.
If the book carried a single message, it would be this: animals’ mental well-being deserves our utmost attention in order for them to have a good life, an enjoyable life, a happy life. It’s really no different than how we want to care for our own children.
MB: How does your work differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?
FM: There are many excellent books on clinical animal behavior and animal welfare. This book is designed to bridge the gap between these two topics, looking at both through the lens of mental well-being. Behavior textbooks are beginning to expand their focus beyond simply “fixing” behavior problems to include healing emotional distress and suffering, and welfare books are now expanding their approach beyond alleviating negative welfare states to include enhancing positive states. But this book is the only one I am aware of that connects and strongly emphasizes both of these shifts in animal care.
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MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about mental health and well-being in animals, they will treat them with more respect, dignity and compassion?
FM: Exactly. When people understand the immense importance of mental health and well-being to animals’ lives, it becomes starkly clear that placing this foremost in how we care for animals gives them the best chance at being able to enjoy their lives.
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