Pets on Prozac

After overmedicating men, women and children, the pharmaceutical companies are finding new markets in drugging cats, dogs and, symbolically, the only pets that talk, parrots.

"Parrots are very intelligent and sensitive animals," a British vet observes. "Typically if people go out to work all day their parrot will get very bored and frustrated and eventually develop depression."

If "more stimulation and toys" don't help, flavored liquid Prozac, he reports, works in two out of three cases.

Dogs and cats get depressed too, showing such symptoms as attacking furniture, loss of appetite and excessive scratching and aggression.

"A dog can't sit on the couch and discuss his worries," another vet explains, "but he can howl the house down, chase his tail or chew everything to pieces."

Eli Lilly has come to the rescue with the first anti-depressant for dogs, a once-a-day chewable tablet flavored with beef, and Pfizer has created a new diet drug and a motion-sickness remedy for pets.

No word yet on the availability of dog houses with little medicine cabinets.