Inexperienced but still interested – Indoor-only cats are more inclined for predatory play than cats with outdoor access

Abstract

Many companion cats (Felis catus) in industrialised countries are raised under human supervision and often kept completely indoors. Even if we assume that cats were not selected intentionally against hunting behaviour, we can still hypothesize that because of the differences in their epigeny and prey-related experiences, adult cats would show different willingness to engage in hunting-type behaviours. Play is considered as a useful proxy for testing predatory behaviour in cats under non-invasive conditions. We investigated the influence of raising and keeping conditions on predatory play behaviour in companion cats. We recorded the subjects’ (N = 31) reactions to artificial prey-like stimuli such as balls of different sizes (latency of approach and latency of contact), catching wand (frequency of failed attempts of catching, duration of holding) and playback sound of birds, paper crumpling, plastic bags, and mice (latency and duration of search for sound source).Indoor-only cats approached, touched or played with balls sooner than indoor-outdoor cats. Indoor-only cats started searching sooner than indoor-outdoor cats for the playback sounds. Cats raised with their mother for a longer duration, had less failed attempts in catching the chaser, than subjects that were raised with their mother for a shorter duration, irrespective of the keeping condition.Indoor-only cats were more interested in the artificial stimuli that show more or less resemblance with the prey, even though these cats have been completely deprived of experience with live prey. There are various theories that can explain these findings, including higher play drive because of the lack of stimulation; less refined prey recognition; or reduced fear due to lack of experience in the indoor-only cats.