Curiously, and perhaps eagerly, I am looking at a bull terrier named Sputnik, searching for a resemblance.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a stocky three-year-old, mostly slate grey, with a white stripe on his head and a pink splotch on his elongated, bull-terrier nose. So far, our only similarity is we\u2019re both waiting in a trailer that\u2019s serving as his examination room at Tufts University\u2019s veterinary school in North Grafton, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
Sputnik has canine compulsive disorder (CCD) and is at Tufts for a checkup with Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian who has been studying CCD for over two decades. I\u2019m shadowing this visit to learn about Dodman\u2019s work and, selfishly, to learn something about myself; I was diagnosed with obsessive\u2013compulsive disorder (OCD) a few months ago.<\/p>\n
When Dodman first started seeing these dogs, he realised he had been handed a potentially ideal animal model to study human OCD. But in 20 years of studying dogs, discovering genes that may be involved and new neural pathways, one problem has continually clouded his research: the debate over whether CCD can truly be compared to human OCD. \u201cWhen it comes to problems of the mind, people have a mental block,\u201d he says. \u201cThe mind is thought of as uniquely human.\u201d<\/p>\n
I try to see into Sputnik\u2019s eyes. He stays close to his owner, Dan Schmuck, giving me an occasional glance. Sputnik was a tail chaser, and would spin for hours on end. At the moment, he is completely still. Like me, it seems he keeps that kind of behaviour away from the public eye.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, after rescuing Sputnik from a shelter, Schmuck went on a business trip. His mother called him to say that their new dog had started chasing his tail, and she couldn\u2019t get him to stop. At first, Schmuck and his wife thought it was funny. They took a video of their young puppy spinning, and you could hear them laughing in the background. But soon, the humour faded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was as if I didn\u2019t exist,\u201d Schmuck explains. \u201cHis head will lurch all the way against his shoulder, and stare at his tail, as if his nemesis is staring right back at him. He will slowly start working up to chasing, and it will get faster and faster until his head is hitting whatever wall he bangs into. Even though he\u2019s getting hit so hard that you think he\u2019s getting a concussion, he will keep doing it until his teeth and his tail start hitting the wall and he\u2019s shooting blood all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n