Pheromonatherapy and animal behaviour: providing a place of greater safety

Abstract

A perception of safety is central to the well-being of all animals, and a lack of safety may make it impossible for an animal to fully engage with the social and physical environment around it. Although the over-riding aim of all owners of companion animals is likely to be the provision of a safe environment for their pet, the reality is that many animals fail to perceive their environment as safe. For such animals, this leads to a lack of capacity for relaxation, an inevitable experience of either frequent or constant stress and elevated arousal levels that initiate behaviours that owners find difficult to cope with; this can lead to problems in the human–animal bond. Pheromones provide animals with specific chemical clues and information regarding the world around them. Through the use of synthetic analogues of pheromones that would normally be associated with a concept of enhanced security, pheromonatherapy may be used to increase the companion animal's capacity to relax in its current location and to be more capable of willingly investigating the wider environment.