Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as the winter blues, is a real problem for humans — but can it affect our canine companions as well? Tim Falk reports.
Sometimes winter can be a thoroughly depressing time of year. The days are shorter, the temperature is freezing and dark-grey clouds seem to oppressively hang over every daylight hour. The active, outdoorsy lifestyle we’ve enjoyed throughout spring, summer and autumn is often replaced by laziness, lethargy, and an overwhelming desire to remain under at least one doona at all times. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), commonly referred to as the winter blues, is a proven type of depression in humans. It leads to a loss of energy, increased moodiness and ongoing feelings of depression or hopelessness, and is thought to be linked to the reduced hours of sunlight during winter.
But can this disorder with the very appropriate acronym affect our dogs as well? On an anecdotal level, plenty of dog owners have reported signs of depression in their canine companions during the winter months. In fact, you might have noticed some of them in your dog as well — lethargy, sadness and a general lack of interest in going out and socialising in the cold weather. While this might suggest that the winter blues may be a problem for our pooches, there’s not yet enough scientific evidence to support this hypothesis.
With such a small body of work to draw on, it’s not yet possible to say whether SAD is a real problem for dogs. In any case, given that the disorder in humans is thought to be connected to the reduced hours of daylight, SAD is associated much more with other parts of the world where mid-winter days are much shorter than in Australia.
Putting diagnoses and acronyms aside for the moment, there’s another question that needs answering: why might my dog be feeling down during the winter months? Despite the fact that depression is not a common diagnosis in dogs, every dog owner will recognise the tell-tale signs that their pooch is not quite feeling its usual self.