Dutch cat owners' views and knowledge on human-cat interaction, needs recognition and social support - information from in-depth semi-structured interviews in the home environment

Abstract

Domestic cats regularly experience stress at the veterinarian and in home situations but also, like all sentient beings, when their needs are not met. Successfully recognising these needs can prevent chronic stress. During stressful situations, cats are capable of experiencing social support. Adequate human-cat relationships, require appropriate human-cat interactions. Appropriate interactions can be based on the CAT model: control and choice (C), attention (A) for body language and signals, and restricting touch (T) to areas preferred by cats. For social support, a cat’s slow blink has been identified as a behaviour, but little is known so far on how social support can be provided in the human-cat relationship. To close this scientific gap, we studied (1) owner-cat interactions as ...