Can Animals be susceptible to the Placebo effect or conformation bias?

Can Animals be susceptible to the Placebo effect or conformation bias?

OMG, this is hilarious. The best laugh I’ve had all week.

A lot of Alt Med is concerned with the interaction of Mind, Body and Spirit. The sketics claim this is all BS. They also claim that Alt Med is nothing more than placebo .. which is the power of the mind over the body … the interaction of Mind, Body and Spirit.

Now, the effect of Alt Med on animals, most of whom do not have anything like the cognitive mind of humans, is supposed to be placebo by proxy. In effect, the human being administering the treatment and believing in the treatment is creating the effect in the animal.

Thanks guys! In one fell swoop, you’ve destroyed all your own arguments (known science ONLY) and supported the Alt Med arena.

EDIT: (for clarification)

I’m addressing the Human Expectation aspect and therefore the Placebo only claim.

And I am pointing out the circle argument that is created when introducing animals and claiming placebo.

Skeptics:

Science only. Everything else is placebo.
Problem: Placebo is mind over matter.

Alt Med:

Mind, Body, Spirit – everything is connected.
Mind over Matter is control of chemical reactions in the body via thoughts (electrical impulses) in the brain. e.g. how can someone walk at normal pace across 4 metres of burning coals and not get burnt?

Placebo by Proxy: Animal recovers because I believe it will recover. No effective Alt Med treatment. Ergo, recovery was due to some effect I have over that animal.
Mind over Matter … matter external to myself. e.g. Alt Med therapies such as Qi Gong, Reiki, Pranic Healing, Kinesiology, Shun Shen Tao, …

So, claiming Placebo AND claiming recordable, observable science only, are mutually exclusive.

In plain language, you can’t have it both ways.

Placebo effect in babies and animals? You must be joking or very ill informed. Where are the studies to back up your hypothesis?

You just destroyed your own argument! Love Gary’s article, too. It effectively says that there is no placebo effect in animals so the therapies don’t help in animals even when they do, so it must be something else that’s telling the animal to get better, but it can’t be a placebo so they are guessing and assuming that it must be this or that because it can’t be placebo and it can’t work, but they have no idea what it is. That doesn’t sound like “evidence based” anything to me if it’s all guessing and assuming, does it?
There is no such thing as placebo in babies or animals as the article well points out and just can’t happen when the recipient can’t comprehend or know what’s being done or what’s supposed to happen. If it’s not placebo causing the effect, then it must work!

Regarding Human Expectation it is somewhat less possible/more obvious because with certain disorders it would be clear whether a (eg) dog did get better or not like if they were crippled and couldnt walk,it would be obvious to the owner or observer if the dog started all of a sudden being able to walk.Same as other things-huge rash,infections,lipoma etc-somethings can easily be seen by an outsider-vet or whatever-to have been improved so its not just the owner thinking/hoping that its gotten better.
There are other conditions though in which it isnt so easily observable & are more subtle and it is possible that an element of expectation or wishful thinking could make the owner think the dogs symptoms had improved when really it hadn’t.

I think dog condition improvement by extra attention is possible but for how many conditions/which illnesses?To suggest that all illnesses could be healed by extra love and attention would need to be proved.

So basically yes its possible,however if you make this claim regarding a particular situation then the burden of proof is on you.You’ve made a claim so then you have to provide the evidence that the dog did definitely in fact get well from a placebo-by-proxy effect.