Abstract
People who feed cats that they do not perceive they own (sometimes called semi-owners) are thought to make a considerable contribution to unwanted cat numbers because the cats they support are generally not sterilized. Understanding people’s perception of cat ownership and the psychology underlying cat semi-ownership could inform approaches to mitigate the negative effects of cat semi-ownership. The primary aims of this study were to investigate cat ownership perception and to examine its association with human-cat interactions and caretaking behaviours. A secondary aim was to evaluate a definition of cat semi-ownership (including an association time of ≥1 month and frequent feeding), revised from a previous definition proposed in the literature to distinguish cat semi-ownership from casual interactions with unowned cats. Cat owners and semi-owners displayed similar types of interactions and caretaking behaviours. Nevertheless, caretaking behaviours were more commonly displayed towards owned cats than semi-owned cats, and semi-owned cats were more likely to have produced kittens (p<0.01). All interactions and caretaking behaviours were more likely to be displayed towards cats in semi-ownership relationships compared to casual interaction relationships. Determinants of cat ownership perception were identified (p<0.05) and included association time, attachment, perceived cat friendliness and health, and feelings about unowned cats, including the acceptability of feeding unowned cats. Encouraging semi-owners to have the cats they care for sterilized may assist in reducing the number of unwanted kittens and could be a valuable alternative to trying to prevent semi-ownership entirely. Highly accessible semi-owner “gatekeepers” could help to deliver education messages and facilitate the provision of cat sterilization services to semi-owners. This research enabled semi-ownership to be distinguished from casual interaction relationships and can assist welfare and government agencies to identify cat semi-owners in order to develop strategies to address this source of unwanted cats.
Highlights
There are large numbers of unwanted cats in many communities
In another Australian study it was suggested that a large proportion of “stray” cats surrendered to the study shelter by the general public were semi-owned based on their weight and sociability [12]
Of the 98 cat semi-owners, 84% (82) were cat owners, and of the 353 respondents who had a casual interaction with an unowned cat, 59% were cat owners (210)
Summary
There are large numbers of unwanted cats in many communities. This is a serious problem as many thousands of unwanted cats are euthanized every year [1], unwanted cats often experience poor welfare [2], and management of unwanted cats results in considerable costs to the community [1,3]. Cat semi-ownership in the community is reported to be relatively common (10–22%) in many countries including Australia [2], Ireland [8], Italy [9], Thailand [5] and the USA [4,10] and is thought to make a considerable contribution to the creation and maintenance of unwanted cat populations direct evidence of this has not been reported [2,5,11]. A recent Australian study identified that a third of cats surrendered to the participating animal shelters as “stray” were, semi-owned [14]. In another Australian study it was suggested that a large proportion of “stray” cats surrendered to the study shelter by the general public were semi-owned based on their weight and sociability (approximately 82% of “stray” cats were of optimal weight or overweight and approximately a quarter of “stray” cats scored 4 or 5 on the Monash Feline Sociability Rating indicating moderate to high sociability) [12]
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