It's a brilliant new approach to treating the traumatized minds of war veterans: having them care for rescued and abused parrots. By developing a bond of trust with a bird, the PTSD patients slowly recover their faith in humanity. Listen to the NPR story.
And here's a shot of my own parrot, eating her vegetables before the Boss:
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There's a nice overview of recent work on animal cognition in the latest National Geographic.
Very nice, a great idea.
I've been suffering from PTSD for years and recently adopted a cockatoo that had been severely neglected. There are a lot of interesting similarities