Comportamento, manejo e bem-estar de gatos domésticos a partir de entrevistas com tutores

Abstract

Many problems can occur to domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) due to the type of management employed by their owners. Outdoor cats are exposed to mistreatment, contracting pathogens and parasites, suffer traffic accidents and can to bring impact natural areas due to predation behavior. On the other hand, animals that are kept confined can develop behavioral problems due to the predictability of the environment and absence of opportunity to perform natural behaviors such as exploration. Common behavioral disorders in pet animals include Separation Related Problems (SRP). SRP are a common disorder in dogs there are reports of occurrence also in cats, being characterized by the display of undesirable behaviors during the absence of the attachment figure. The cat may, for example, eliminate in inappropriate places, exhibit destructive behavior and excessive vocalization. Therefore, our goals were: i) to identify causal factors that affects the practice of allowing cats to roam freely by their owners and; ii) evaluate potential welfare risks associated with the allowance of outdoor access, based on cat owners reports; iii) to develop a questionnaire for cat owners which identifies the most typical behavioral signals characteristic of SRP, as well as relate the occurrence of SRP to the management practices applied in the sampled cats. So, two questionnaires were developed, being used in two distinct studies, one of them with online application, for identification of cats management practices and allowance of outdoor access, applied to 8,485 cat owners, and another applied via semistructured interviews, to identify SRP applied to 223 cat owners. For data analysis of the first study, logistic regression models were used to obtain the odds ratios (OR). Some of the factors significantly related to allowance of outdoor access by cat owners were: uncastrated cats (χ2 = 184.75), origin of the cat (χ2 = 742.90), residences in rural areas (χ2 = 1622.70), number of owned cats (χ2 = 81.32), presence of other pets in the house (χ2 = 81.32), younger age of owners (χ2 = 55.83), owner declare not being responsible for the cat (χ2 = 119.61), owners perception about the role of the cat in the house (χ2 = 125.76), owners notion about cat potential for transmitting diseases (χ2 = 138.69), lack of notion about zoonoses (χ2 = 6.44), lack of notion about toxoplasmosis (χ2 = 43.62). The practice of allowing outdoor access was related to significantly higher odds ratio (p < 0.01) of owners report several welfare problems such as frequent flea contamination (OR = 3.42), sporotrichosis (OR = 2.36), missing cat (OR = 2.36), poisoning (OR = 2.15), mistreatment (OR = 1.57) and accidents (OR = 8.15). In its turn, the statistical analyses of the second study were performed by using Fisher’s Exact test, qui-square, and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). Among the sampled animals, 13.45% (30 / 223) met at least one of the criteria used to define SRP. Destructive behavior was the most frequently signal reported in those cats (66.67%, 20 / 30), followed by excessive vocalization (63.33%, 19 / 30), urination in inappropriate places (60.00%, 18 / 30), depression-apathy (53.33%, 16 / 30), aggressiveness (36.67%, 11 / 30) and agitation-anxiety (36.67%, 11 / 30), and in lower frequency, defecation in inappropriate places (23.33%, 7 / 30). The occurrence of SRP was associated with the number of females living in the residence (P = 0.01), with not having access to toys (P = 0.04), no other animal residing in the house (P = 0.04) and a tendency for being left alone in the house from two to six hours per day (P = 0.09). We conclude that outdoor management practice reported by 37.1% of cat owners can result in severe risks to the welfare of cats. Regarding to separation related problems in domestic cats, these are a disorder difficult to identify due to the limited amount of knowledge about this issue. The questionnaire developed in this study supported identification of the main behavioral signals related to SRP in cats and could be used as a starting point for future research.