Volume 9, Issue 6, November–December 2014, Pages 324–328
Research
- a Institute of Biomedical Sciences Abel Salazar, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
- b Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies, Lisbon, Portugal
- c School of Psychology and Life Sciences, Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies, Lisbon, Portugal
- d COPELABS—Cognition and People-centric Computing Laboratories, Lusophone University of Humanities and Technologies, Lisbon, Portugal
- e CIISA—Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar em Sanidade Animal, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- Received 31 January 2014, Revised 25 July 2014, Accepted 19 August 2014, Available online 23 August 2014
Abstract
Cats
have certain strongly motivated behaviors, which could be defined as
“needs,” that should be understood to provide the cat the best quality
of life and assure proper welfare. It is well recognized that cats have
several behavioral needs, which if not met, can result in anxiety and
secondary behavior problems. These problems can lead to relinquishment
or euthanasia. Veterinarians and veterinary nurses have a special role
when educating owners. To increase owners' compliance, veterinary
professionals should have evidence-based knowledge for the right
information to be communicated to feline owners. The goal of the present
study was to identify and compare the level of knowledge that
veterinarians, veterinary nurses, and pet owners have about cat behavior
and to compare their perceptions on this subject. We were also
interested in determining whether living with a cat affected the
professionals' knowledge base and what they are able to properly
communicate to pet owners. It was expected that the veterinarians would
have the highest level of knowledge regarding the interpretation of
feline behavioral needs. We also hypothesized that those professionals
who had or have previously owned a cat would have a better understanding
of what cats actually need. A questionnaire, called “questionnaire to
assess cat's needs” (QACN), was completed by cat owners, veterinarians,
and veterinary nurses. The QACN had 13 different statements about the
behavioral needs of cats, and each participant had to select their level
of agreement with the statement. The QACN was then scored and a
principal component analysis was used to identify meaningful
associations. The following 3 components were extracted: elimination,
stress releasers, and human stimulation. Contrary to what was expected,
the results showed that in some specific areas (stress releasers and
human stimulation) veterinarians' and veterinary nurses' knowledge was
not significantly different from that of cat owners. This could mean
that the role of these professionals in preventing behavioral problems
can be very compromised. Those professionals who had owned a cat
personally were better at identifying the behavioral needs of cats, with
some significant differences (related with stress releasers), compared
with those professionals who had never owned a cat. More education about
feline behavior should be included when training veterinarians and
veterinary nurses for clients to continue to trust these professionals
to provide them with evidence-based knowledge about cat behavior.
Keywords
- need;
- behavior;
- welfare;
- cat;
- interpretation;
- owners
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