Dogs Have OCD

Ever wonder why your Doberman circles five times before sitting down or eating? So did the researchers at Tufts and UMass. Obsessive compulsive disorder is characterized by time consuming, repetitive behaviors, and it affects about 2 percent of humans. You may not even be aware that your dogs actions could be governed by a similar disorder, the equally distressing canine equivalent “canine compulsive disorder,” or CCD. That the results of the study are actually pretty neat is almost beside the point. Through collaboration between Harvard University, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts, the University of Massachusetts Medical School and others, scientists discovered that the canine chromosome 7 location within the neural cadherin-2 gene, or CDH2, confers a high risk of susceptibility to the disorder