Surrenderers' Relationships with Cats Admitted to four Australian Animal Shelters.

Sarah Zito,Di Vankan,John Morton,Clive Phillips,Jacquie Rand,Pauleen Bennett,Mandy Paterson

doi:10.3390/ani8020023

Sarah Zito, Di Vankan + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8020023

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Abstract

Simple SummaryThe surrender of cats to animal shelters results in financial, social and moral burdens for the community. Human caretaking of cats was explored in a sample of people surrendering cats to shelters in Australia. At the shelters surrenderers classified themselves as owners or non-owners and a questionnaire identified that this was related to their method of acquisition of the cat, their association time with the cat, the closeness of their relationship with the cat and their degree of responsibility for the cat’s care. A model of ownership perception was developed to provide a better understanding of factors influencing ownership perception. Understanding ownership perceptions in cats surrendered to shelters is important as these can inform the development of more targeted and effective intervention strategies to reduce numbers of unwanted cats.The surrender of cats to animal shelters results in financial, social and moral burdens for the community. Correlations of caretaking and interactions with surrendered cats were calculated, to understand more about humans’ relationships with surrendered cats and the contribution of semi-owned cats to shelter intakes. A questionnaire was used to collect detailed information about 100 surrenderers’ relationships with cats they surrendered to four animal shelters in Australia, with each surrenderer classifying themselves as being either the owner or a non-owner of the surrendered cat (ownership perception). Method of acquisition of the cat, association time, closeness of the relationship with the cat and degree of responsibility for the cat’s care were all associated with ownership perception. Many non-owners (59%) fed and interacted with the cat they surrendered but rarely displayed other caretaking behaviours. However, most surrenderers of owned and unowned cats were attached to and felt responsible for the cat. Based on these results and other evidence, a causal model of ownership perception was proposed to provide a better understanding of factors influencing ownership perception. This model consisted of a set of variables proposed as directly or indirectly influencing ownership perception, with connecting arrows to indicate proposed causal relationships. Understanding ownership perception and the contribution of semi-owned cats to shelter intake is important as these can inform the development of more targeted and effective intervention strategies to reduce numbers of unwanted cats.

Highlights

Unwanted cats surrendered to animal shelters are a significant burden on the community and create ethical concerns associated with the euthanasia of healthy animals, moral stress for the people involved, financial costs to organisations that manage unwanted cats and welfare concerns for the cats [1,2,3,4]
On admission to RSPCA animal shelters in Australia, cats are classified as either “owned” or “stray,” the latter indicating that the person surrendering the cat does not identify themselves as the cat’s owner or their agent
Cat semi-ownership results in potential welfare issues for cats, such as supplying food that is variable in quantity and quality, attracting cats to high traffic areas and encouraging the production of unwanted kittens, which together with the original cat may be surrendered to a shelter [6,8]

Summary

Introduction

Unwanted cats surrendered to animal shelters (including welfare organisations and municipal pounds) are a significant burden on the community and create ethical concerns associated with the euthanasia of healthy animals, moral stress for the people involved, financial costs to organisations that manage unwanted cats and welfare concerns for the cats [1,2,3,4]. Many unwanted cats live in the community, resulting in other problems such as predation on wildlife, cat to cat and inter-species disease transmission (including zoonotic disease), nuisance behaviours, cat welfare issues and perpetuation of the breeding of additional unwanted cats [2,5]. Many of these cats are supported to varying extents by humans who intentionally provide some level of care (food, medical treatment or shelter) but do not perceive themselves as owners of the cats [4,6]. A high proportion of shelter cat admissions from the general public are classified as “strays” with 54–82% classified as “strays” in Australia [4,8]

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