Is your dog just chasing its tail – or is it obsessive?

Lots of dogs chase their tails - but for some the behaviour is a sign of the canine version of OCD. Now scientists are finding the minds of dogs and humans might be more closely linked than we thought

Curiously, and perhaps eagerly, I am looking at a bull terrier named Sputnik, searching for a resemblance. He's 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're both waiting in an examination room at Tuft's veterinary school in North Grafton, Massachusetts.

Sputnik has canine compulsive disorder (CCD) and is at Tuft's for a checkup with Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian who has been studying CCD for more than two decades. I'm shadowing this visit to learn about Dodman's work and, selfishly, to learn something about myself: I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder a few months ago.

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