Good evening, everybody, and thank you very much for joining us for tonight's presentation, which is on feline environmental optimisation at home and in the practise, and which is going to be presented by Dr. Sarah Heath. So Sarah spent 4 years in mixed general practise before setting up behavioural referrals to practise in Chester in 1992.

Sarah is a Royal College and European veterinary specialist in behavioural medicine, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2018. So I'm very much looking forward to this talk this evening, Sarah. So I will hand straight over to you.

Thank you very much indeed. Good evening, everybody. So welcome to those who are attending, in person this evening, and to any who are listening to the, recording afterwards as well.

So we're gonna be talking this evening. About feline environmental optimisation, and we're gonna look at that in the home and in the practise and also think about the emotional implications if optimisation is not achieved. So before we go any further, it's probably worth just, looking at that word optimisation, and thinking about why I use that rather than the term environmental enrichment, which is possibly the term that you're slightly more familiar with.

So, we talk a lot about environmental enrichment, but the implication of that word is that you're supplying something in excess of what is needed. You're doing something above and beyond, and it tends to lead to us patting ourselves on the back and saying, what a fantastic job we're doing. And isn't it great that we're providing all this extra stuff?

And what we're talking about tonight is not, enrichment. It's not a luxury, it's not additional stuff that's optional. We're talking about optimisation, which is just providing.

For the environmental needs of that particular species. You're not doing anything special. You're just making sure that that environment matches what that species needs.

And I think that's really important because I think we've tended to use this word enrichment, and then start to talk about things that actually are just basic needs, as if we're doing something special. So let's look at this concept of optimisation in relation to the home, to start with, and we have to think about what's happening inside the feline home. So, we're gonna look at the, five pillars of environmental needs as they relate to the home inside.

We also need to think about the fact that there's an outdoor environment around the home. And we might think about that more readily for cats that go outside, but we do need to remember that even those cats that are indoor cats will still have access visually to the outside world. And the outside world may also impact on their inside and the, and the home environment because of visual access.

So when we look at the different pillars, we're going to relate those to the home inside, and then at the end, we'll just briefly talk about that outside environment. And then we're also going to consider the practise, and we can think about the practise being divided into different zones. I'm not gonna go into, all of the features of the veterinary practise, but just touch on some of them in terms of things like the waiting room environment, the consulting room, and then the hospitalisation areas.

So as I've just said, in addressing environmental needs is a necessity. It's not a luxury, it's not an optional extra. And the reason I chose the word, optimisation is that if something is not, optimised, then it would be sub optimal.

And suboptimal is not acceptable. Whereas something that has not been enriched may still be adequate. So addressing environmental needs is something that is essential, whether it's at home or whether it's us in the veterinary practise environment, considering the needs of the species we're dealing with.

And tonight we're talking about the cats. And we're going to look at the guidelines on feline environmental needs that were produced by, ISFM and AAFP. They've produced a number of really excellent guideline documents, which you can download free of charge, from the websites of either of these organisations, and that would really Encourage you to do that.

If, if you're, looking for information, those two websites are really good places to go to. And as I say, we're talking about these environmental needs guidelines tonight, but there are many guidelines on handling and on feeding behaviour, etc. Within the, the scope of those organisations.

So, when we think about the veterinary practice's role in advising clients and in incorporating these ideas into our own practises, we're thinking about the fact that we are responsible for the overall health care of our patients. And health has got three components to it. Those of you've heard me speak before, they've heard me talk about the health triad.

So the idea that health has got Equally important components of physical health, which, obviously, we concentrate on a great deal as a profession, and then also emotional health and cognitive health. So when we look at the health implications of the feline environmental needs, we can see that fulfilling these five pillars is actually about providing optimal feline healthcare, and that is our responsibility. And failure to meet the needs has implications for all three parts of the health tryout.

So it has emotional consequences, and that's what we're going to talk about this evening. Those emotional consequences also have the potential to impact on physical health through. The impact of physiological stress, and then we also have the potential for learning to be complicated by the, the environment being suboptimal and that obviously impacts on cognitive health.

So the health triad, just to recap, is physical health, cognitive health and emotional health. Oh, I apologise, they came on in the wrong order. So, this is the physical health one on the top, the picture of the cat in the veterinary environment.

The emotional health here, looking at the, this, facial. Expression associated with an anxious state in this cat, so an emotional response, and then here we have a cat learning through cognition, to use a cat flap. And all of these states being interrelated, and our job of healthcare involving all three components.

So, an optimal environment has certain, purposes, if you like, achieve certain things, and what are they? Well, the first one is that they increase security. So if we have an optimised environment, then we're going to reduce the unnecessary stimulation of so-called protective emotions.

So emotions that are termed negative emotions in the PANSA model. And then in the sync model, of, that I created in about 2010, I used the word protective rather than negative. And the reason for that was that the word negative has connotations of being bad or unwanted.

And we have to remember that protective emotions are not bad. Protective emotions are essential for survival, but what we don't want are unnecessary triggerings of protective emotions. And if we have an optimised environment, we reduce the possibility of unnecessary protective emotion and thereby increase security.

We also encourage an engaging, or a positive emotional bias. So one set of emotions is about protecting the individual, the other set of emotions is about that individual engaging with either the environment, which may be physical or social, so engaging with experiences or with individuals and interacting with them. And those positive emotions can be increased by optimising the environment, so you're going to want to engage more with your physical and social environment if it's optimised.

Also, the other thing that an optimal environment does is it provides outlets for natural behavioural responses, and that is an incredibly important part of optimising welfare. But as well as improving welfare in a global sense, we also, as a veterinary profession need to realise that if we can optimise environments, we also improve physical health because we reduce that negative impact of chronic physiological stress. So let's go through the 5 pillars as presented in the AFP ISFM guidelines, and here they are.

So we'll go through these each in turn. We'll look at what they mean, what we need to do to achieve them, and then just look at the emotional impact that would result if we failed to optimise the environment in that particular regard. So, if we look at providing a safe place, all cats require a safe and secure core territory.

So a core territory is where cats eat, sleep, and play, and it's only shared with members of the same feline social group. Now, that can be a problem for domestic cats in households where there is limited space, because we may Find cats being expected to, cohabit within the same core territory. And we need to think about how are we going to increase core territory access in just those social groupings.

Now, of course, we'd need to identify those social groupings to start with. We do that through using things called affiliative behaviour maps, where we look for those. Affiliative behaviours of grooming and rubbing to identify whether cats actually are compatible.

Remember that lack of hostility does not mean that cats are compatible with one another. We need to see the presence of affiliative behaviours. And once we know how many cat groups we've got, we then know how many core territories we need to think about establishing.

Now, some of the things that make a safe place, as far as a feline is concerned, are things like access to three dimensional space. And the other thing about accessing three dimensional space, as well as it giving a sensation of security for the individual cat, is that if we use this technique, we can actually increase the size of the home and As far as the cats are concerned. So we can't ask our caregivers to move house or to put on an extension.

But there's actually a lot of space within domestic environments, which is wasted from a feline perspective. That three dimensional space that's not accessible. So if we can use things like shelving or purpose-built cat furniture, which we'll talk about.

In a second, or even just the tops of pieces of existing human furniture, so tops of cupboards and wardrobes, then that can be a very effective way of providing high up resting locations, which is part of creating a safe environment, but also increasing the availability of space to create more than one core territory within a household. And this access to three dimensional space is important because elevation and the ability to hide are important coping strategies for cats if they are faced with emotional challenge. So being able to elevate and being able to be in a position of being hidden.

Remember, cats are hidden. And they cannot see the threat, rather than actually being completely physically out of sight. But if they are elevated and have the ability to hide, they're more likely to control protective emotions and more likely to limit unnecessary, triggering of those emotions.

And we can make quite small alterations to an environment to make what can be a considerable difference in terms of the cat's perception of their level of safety. So we can put up shelves, we can use things like radiator cradles, as you can see here, or more elaborate pieces of furniture. But we can be quite imaginative, and we can do it quite small things can make a big difference.

The other thing to consider about this safe place is that cats value privacy. So this need for access to vertical space, access to the potential to feel protected, is not only about multi-cat households. We've talked about that in terms of needing a core territory for each social group.

But even in single cat households, we still need to remember that they need this access to elevation, this sensation of being safe. So you can see, over on the right-hand picture, in a single cat household, we've got an elevated cradle up here. And we can also see from this picture that when we don't provide them with purpose-built, elevated hiding places, they will find them for themselves.

But the difference between environmental enrichment and optimisation is really quite nicely illustrated by considering how we provide that access to three dimensional space. It needs to be provided in a way which is actually optimal for the cat. And these pictures are taken from a website which talks about environmental enrichment for cats.

And I don't think there's any doubt that this environment is enriched. In other words, things that are not necessary have been added to it, but, and things that are very pretty and colourful, etc. But is it optimised?

Well, let's just have a look at, first of all, This hiding place that this cat is in. If you look at the post photograph to the right, you'll see that that hiding place is actually on a pathway. So, it's not a safe and secure hiding location, because if any cat is coming or going along this walkway, they need to get through this supposed safe place.

We can also see that these walkways are very narrow, and In this picture on the right hand side, you can see how all the cats are moving in the same direction. If one of these cats decides they want to go the other way, we've got the potential for blocking and the potential for tension. And you can see that illustrated with some other pictures from the same house, looking at these eye trajectories, between these cats.

You can see as well on this picture here, the, the bottom left-hand picture. On this slide, you can see that ear posture, you can see the staring, the whiskers of forward. There's an eye trajectory between these two cats.

And this is because of the fact that these are narrow pathways that actually don't have enough choice in terms of how these cats access this vertical space without running the gauntlet of another cat. So, this is not an optimal environment, but it's certainly enriched. If we think about that safe place requirement, the other thing to think about is privacy.

Privacy is a feature of a safe place. So offering specific sources of privacy can be really helpful. Again, we can do things like provide cat towers that have these sorts of tunnels or cradles.

We can provide blankets and things for them to, hide inside, but we can also do this without a high budget. We can use cardboard boxes. This cardboard box as well has the advantage that we can open up the other end, because if we're providing privacy, we also need to make sure that we can we're not going to have the possibility of individuals being trapped inside their private locations.

We also need to think about privacy from outside. Visual access is a significant factor in feline stress. So just because cats don't go outside doesn't mean that they don't have the potential to feel threatened and vulnerable related to activity in the outdoor environment.

These cats here. This is, Harvey, the black cat on the right, and Gilbert, in a multi-cat household. And actually were referred to me for tension between these two cats.

One of the things that was creating emotional arousal in this household was the fact that this garden, beyond these patio doors, backs onto an allotment. And so this garden is like the M6, feline M6 equivalent. Every cat in the neighbourhood uses this garden to access the allotments at the back.

And so, Harry and Gilbert were constantly patrolling and vigilant at this boundary with their garden because of the fact that other cats kept coming through it. To access the allotments, and that was a, a stress factor, which was actually contributing to lowered emotional capacity for both of the cats, and therefore more tension between them. There were other reasons for the tension, like the age difference and a higher requirement for social play from Harry than Gilbert was able to offer, and also some OA pain that was as had not been diagnosed in Gilbert.

So, privacy can be enhanced by blocking the view from windows, and that can be an important part of optimisation of the environment for cats that are challenged by outdoor environmental triggers. And we can use things like temporary frosting. Temporary frosting can be ideal because of the fact that it can't be, manoeuvred.

So, if we do Roller blinds or curtains, there are, is the possibility for the cats to manoeuvre them. However, we do need to remember that when we're blocking access visually, we do need to make sure that we're not potentially inducing frustration. So one of the things that is beneficial about a roller blind like this is that if the cat wishes to look outside, they've got that option.

And so little things that we might do with temporary frosting to optimise the feline environment in terms of windows is to frost the bottom windows, the ones at ground level, because that's where the challenge, perception of challenge from other cats outside, for example, is greater, but keep the upstairs windows unfrosted so that the cat can Still observe its outdoor environment, can still be visually able to look for challenge and make sure that they feel safe. We can also do things like temporary frost just either end of the window and leave the middle part unfrosted again, to give them choice and to prevent the, introduction of frustration. Also, we need to remember that we would need to look at the outdoor environment as well, because if there are vantage points outside, so there's garden furniture that these cats can sit on, or there's a wall round the garden that enables them to sit and observe, then that is going to be actually fueling the potential challenge.

So it's no good just putting temporary frosting up. We might also want to modify the outdoor environment to reduce the potential for challenge. So we need to think about visual invasion.

We also do need to think, of course, about the potential for physical invasion, and free access cat flaps can certainly cause problems. So we would advocate the addition of things like microchip technology, to things like the shore flat, which, can significantly increase the security of the household. But one of the problems with some of the modern day cap flaps, as is illustrated in this picture, Is that the actual flap itself is visually quite confronting.

And one of the things that can really help about creating a safe place in your home environment is for there to be some kind of signal when the cat flap is open and physically able to be used and when it's not, and things like putting a cover over the cat. Flat when it's closed, can significantly reduce the level of anxiety and concern about the flap, so you, the cat has a discriminating stimulus that tells them that it is safe and secure if things like if you are locking the cat flap at night, for example. Of course, we need to think about trying to provide a safe place in our veterinary context as well.

And within the waiting room, we are now, better at using elevated locations for cat baskets. So having more chairs than we're expecting people. Now, of course, at the moment, with COVID, we've moved away from the waiting room, and there are certainly some good things that have happened during the pandemic, and losing the waiting room is possibly one of them.

So it might be that we want to consider whether or not we go. Back to having actual waiting room, access, or whether we go back, we continue, sorry, with the idea of leaving the cat in the basket in the car, coming in and registering that you're there, but then waiting, to be called, or even phoning in, which we've now got much better at using that technique of the clients arriving in the car park and then phoning in and saying they're there, rather than having to bring cats into the potentially very stressful environment of a waiting room. Within the consulting room, we can think of ways in which we can offer a perception of safety and a safe place, remembering that cats feel safe when they have some sensation of enclosure.

So things like the weighing scales that we have for cats in, in our GP consulting rooms that have got these kind of curved sides that you can see in the picture. Here to the left and the one in the middle. You can also think about using towels.

The towels are very good for handling, but also have the advantage that, that at the end of the handling, as you loose the, the towel from actually holding onto the cat, you can then allow the cat to just hide in it. And here on the bottom right-hand picture, this is a Picture from my colleague and friend Lona Rhoden, in the States, and she's illustrating how we can take the top off of cat carriers and use the towel slid between the lid and the bottom before the lid is removed to create again a sensation of having a safe place whilst in the consulting room. And likewise, in the hospitalisation areas we can think about how we might provide a combination of elevation and privacy to create that safe place through things like the, this is the feline fort illustrated here in a rescue centre, so we've got two cats, obviously in a hospital.

That would be unlikely. But the idea of this is it offers some elevation, also offers good visibility by having these two entrance points into the, the hideout, if you like, at the bottom, of this hide and sleep. This is a hide and perch box from .

The, SPCA, in British Columbia, who first came up with this concept, so this is in a, a cardboard format, if you like, of the slightly more sophisticated feline thought. These are available from cats protection. If we look over to the right hand side, we can see the idea of the use of towels to offer some level of privacy when they're in a veterinary hospital.

Just remember that, again, we, as we talked about with the frosting, and the fact that if we just frost the whole window, we might induce frustration, the same can occur if we just put towels over the whole of the front of the cat's cage that we can actually create frustration. So it may be better. To either put it over just half of the front of the cage or 3 quarters so that the cat can be behind the towel inside, but can also see.

Or if you've got an internal shelf, as we can see in this slide here on the right-hand side, then we might be able to put it over the internal shelf. So this cat has an ability to go behind here and be hidden, but can also come to the front and be seen or see, and therefore monitor its environment. I would probably put this towel over about 3/4 of that in a shelf rather than the whole way across in order to allow for visual access to the cat if we want to be able to monitor our patient visually.

So what's the emotional impact of failing to provide a safe place? Well, it's more likely that we will see fear anxiety motivation if we don't feel safe. We've also got to remember that seeking out a safe place is, is governed by the desire-seeking motivational system.

So if there is no safe place to find, then you will get frustration of that desire-seeking system, and frustration and fear and anxiety are both protective emotions. They increase the potential for there to be high emotional arousal, for there to be a protective emotional bias, and also potentially for there to be a physiological state implication from that prolonged, protective bias. In terms of behavioural change, it increases the potential for interAP tension, for a decrease in the quality of the relationship between the people.

And the cat, and, of course, a reduction in the quality of life of that individual. And because of the fact that the cat has now a lack of a sensation of safety, we may start to see behavioural, attempts to increase their own sensation of security by, for example, hiding, and retreating from the areas where they consider themselves to be unsafe. So if we move on to the 2nd pillar, the 2nd pillar is to provide the opportunity for play and predatory behaviour.

It's really important when we think about this pillar, that this is talking very specifically about play in relation to predation. And we need to remember that play comes from different emotional motivational systems. There are different forms of play.

So social play motivation is the one that's involved in the intra-specific contact type play, rough and tumble style play. And this happens between cats within a social group. It's much more strongly motivated in cats, less than 2 to 3 years of age, so before they reach social maturity.

So kittens and young adults, those up to 3 years of age are more likely to be motivated to engage in social play with members of their species. After social maturity, the main form of feline play is object play, which is motive. By the desire seeking system rather than the social play system and involves predatory style behaviour.

And this form of play, object play, is generally a solitary behaviour. So when they're engaging in this form of desire-seeking motivated play, which is the one that's actually talked about in this pillar, that that is something that most cats wish to do alone. So when we think about providing sufficient access to object play, to desire seeking motivated play, what we're talking about is providing both mental and physical exercise.

So we want to ensure that cats expend enough mental and physical energy during the. That, of course, is important for in terms of weight control, and that's part of what we think of, particularly when we think about expending physical energy. But it's also about maintaining physical and mental fitness.

So this is a pillar. It's an essential need. It's not a luxury.

It's about optimisation, not enrichment. Remember that cats are designed to engage in short bursts of energy consuming activity. It's often related to predatory behaviour through this desire-seeking motivation, and they intersperse these very intense periods of energy consumption with significant periods of rest and relaxation.

And the pattern of play is important if we're going to enhance the availability of object-related play for our feline patients, to remember that they play in short bursts, so they play for, between 1 and 5. Minutes at a time they may then sort of have a chain of those 1 to 5 minute bursts of activity that, leads to obviously a greater total over the day, but that feature of short bursts is really important. The other thing about maintaining play in cats is to make sure that they have a variety of stimulation within their environment.

There are certain features of feline toys that are necessary in order to maintain this perception that the item is changing, that it is different. Cats don't waste their energy reacting to every. Blade of grass that they see, but they will react if that blade of grass is moving, because that's the blade of grass that may have the potential to have a small rodent beside it.

So they are very much tuned into change in an object being the stimulus for interest. And this is why you often hear, people saying that they've bought. Toys for their cats, but they don't keep up their interest.

They're interested in them for a day or two, and then they lose interest. So toys need to provide this element of change in order to sustain that form of play. In this, cartoon that says, now remember you spent $400 on that, so no matter what, we can never play with it.

That I think clients often feel that they have Spent a lot of time and effort in getting toys and then feel disappointed when the cat doesn't want to play with it. But if they're not playing with it, we need to ask ourselves, A, is it the right sort of toy? Does it have the right features of the toy to maintain that interest?

Or is there a way that we can actually rotate the toys available to maintain that perception of them changing? And we can also think about catering for this pillar within the concept of feeding, because this pillar is about providing opportunities for play and predatory behaviour. Now, obviously, when they're predating, they're not playing.

Object play is a way of rehearsing for predation. So we have two ways of fulfilling this pillar. One is through play, through appropriate toys, and the other is through using, predatory.

Behaviour during the process of actually consuming food. And cats are designed to eat multiple small meals a day. They like to be in control of access to their food.

So products such as the indoor hunting feeder, which you may be familiar with from a company called Doc and Phoebe in the States, these little mice provide a lot of the features that we need. They have varying textures. They have little cord tails, little felt ears, little cotton.

Bodies. They also have the plastic receptacle that the food goes in. The the purpose of these is not to fill the little receptacle right to the top, but just to put a few kibble in in order to stimulate the interest and the physical activity in gaining access to these little mice, and they can be hidden around the house.

We use them a lot for cats, for example, that are involved in night. Time waking, so giving them the ability to engage in their predatory behaviour at times that are more likely to be stimulating so dawn and dusk, which may be when we don't actually want to be engaging with the cat, or we don't want the cat to be outside to have access to actual prey, whether that's insect form or larger, more significant prey, pet prey. So we can also use things like the the various puzzle feeders that are on the market.

There are many, many of these available using different forms of predatory behaviour, so using paws and. Using, obviously poor eye coordination, etc. So these are important ways of improving this pillar within the concept of feeding.

Remember, we don't want to always imply that people have got spent a lot of money on optimising an environment. This is something we, they really have, have got to do, so we want to make it as accessible for all. All as possible.

So we can certainly optimise the feeding environment through this particular pillar by using things like puzzle feeders, and they can be handmade out of little soft drink bottles, as you can see on this bottom left hand picture, or through using things like cardboard, tubes that we can put food in. And obviously, we need to think about. The situation when there's wet food, so these sort of yoghurt pot feeders.

And actually, Doc and Phoebe's, who produce the indoor hunting feeder, actually do produce a wet indoor indoor hunting feeder as well. So it's a bit like, looks like a, a very squashed mouse. It's got like a, a body to it, and you can, smear the wet food inside it.

A little bit like a licking mat for cats. And then when we're in the hospital, we need to think about, can we actually increase that desire seeking motivation to have access to food by the way in which we present it. If the appetite's already compromised, maybe for a physical health reason, this could be something we could work on to try and improve that predatory interest without necessarily expending more energy.

We've got a hospitalised patient who is compromised in terms of their physical health, we might want to provide this food access in a way that doesn't exert them particularly physically, and conserves their energy expenditure while still fulfilling that desire-seeking motivation. Desire-seeking motivation is one of the engaging or interacting emotions. So of course, that will help us to create a more engaging emotional bias.

So what's the emotional impact if we don't provide opportunity for play and predatory behaviour? There's certainly a risk of frustration. So desire seeking system for object play is very strongly motivated in cats.

If they don't have access for this sort of outlet, then they will find something. So if they don't have sufficient toys. And they don't have feeding opportunities, and they don't have access to real prey, then they are likely to show signs of frustration, and frustration is the emotion that is, the mother of solution.

So when you're frustrated, you try harder, you use more intense and more rapid behavioural responses with the aim of achieving your aim. And so they will pounce on the tails of other cats or on the ankles of people who are walking past them or coming downstairs, and that gives an increase in the potential for predatory behaviour that's going towards what we would term inappropriate targets, so ankles, wrists, fingers, tails of other cats. The other thing that can happen as well if we don't cater for this opportunity for play and predatory behaviour in a style which actually mimics that high energy expending activity over a short period of time and then prolonged rest, then we may actually need.

To an animal that has this very high state of emotional arousal, doesn't have the opportunity to drain out emotionally, and that can predispose them to being in a sympathetic state when they consume food and can lead to problems of obesity. Our third pillar is to provide consistent and predictable human-cat interaction. And in order to understand how we're going to fulfil this pillar in an optimising way, so making the environment optimal for the cat, we need to think about how the social relationship with people can actually pose quite a challenge to the domestic cat, because there are some fundamental differences between Our social interaction and theirs.

So, for example, people are, what we might term low frequency, high intensity interactors. So we may not see our friends all week, and then we spend a whole of a Friday evening with them. We don't see our family for months, and then we spend All weekend with them, or God forbid Christmas.

So we have these intense periods of social interaction, but they don't happen very often, whereas cats on the other hand, base their social interaction on much more high frequency, but much lower intensity. So where humans expect all greetings to be quite intense and particularly to involve physical contact, cats are happy to just shout hello and keep on moving, just to have that brief intensity of encounter, but do it more frequently during the day. And we also have to remember that our social contact, particularly with something which we are caring for or nurturing, often involves this element of physical contact.

We have an instinct to pick cats up, to cuddle them in order to demonstrate affection because that's what we would do. With humans. But remember that cats are control freaks, that the perception of being handled in a way that takes away your control, that means you're not now able to dictate when or how this interaction either continues or terminates, that that actually for a cat can be very frightening.

And can actually remove the ability to control their environment and make them more anxious. So we can see lots of pictures of contented human beings as we've got in this middle picture at the bottom and also the right-hand picture, contented human expression and a cat that's in a protective emotional bias. And one of the problems, and as well as having a different form of social interaction, a a different method of social interaction is also that humans do perceive close physical interaction to be a sign of contentment.

In fact, we often think that under Individuals who are alone, are likely to be unhappy, this idea of Billy no mates at the cinema on his own, or the person sitting in a restaurant alone, being unfortunate. And we tend to think about having company as being crucial to a state of happiness. But we need to remember that our feline companions are not socially obligate.

That doesn't mean they're not social, and they don't enjoy social contact, because indeed they do. But that they don't depend on social contact for survival, and they can view time alone as a very positive experience. So in order to provide for this pillar of consistent and predictable human interaction, we need to consider their social structure rather than just our own.

If we go back to this idea of social interaction as well, we need to remember that in humans, social play, we talked about play before in the other pillar, which was about object play and predatory-based play. But social play is something that persists into adulthood for humans. We engage in social play as part of our social interaction.

An example here of rugby is a form of adult social play in human animals. But social play diminishes in cats after they reach social maturity at 2 to 3 years of age. And from that point, it is very much object play that predominates in the feline world.

And so one of the ways in which we can sometimes inappropriately interact as humans in terms of social interaction is to try and incorporate social play in our interactions with our cats. So, when we do attempt social play between species. So when we try to play socially with an animal of another species, we need to remember that now this context is not necessarily being set for both parties.

And so we can equate the idea of a human trying to socially play with a cat, or indeed other species as well. A bit like someone who's motivated to scrum because they're a rugby player, doing it on a Saturday in jeans and trainers on the high street. To an unsuspecting passerby, that passerby is not going to see that as a rugby tackle, even though that's how it was motivated in the perpetrator.

They're gonna see it as a mugging, as a common assault, and are going to react with an emotional response of fear and anxiety. And so, it can also happen when we try to socially play between species, particularly when the motivation to social play is very different in those species. So as a result of quite significant differences between human and feline perceptions of social contact, many feline behaviour systems are actually quite compromised within a domestic environment.

So cats are often denied the opportunity to retreat from social interactions or to spend time alone because we feel they're missing out. So we try to keep them in social contact. Remember.

That for humans, being alone is seen as malcontent and therefore we don't want the cat to be unhappy. We want them to have company. We can actually sometimes actually make them, unable or remove their ability to protect themselves or to engage in more normal feline interactions.

The other thing we've touched on already in another slide is also this idea that we like to hold on to our cats. We like to cuddle them and pick them up as a sign of affection, but when we do that, we again, remove the sensation of control. We may be engaged in restrictive handling, and also take away their ability to use avoidance as a behaviour strategy if they feel challenged.

And all of those things are going to mean that the predictability and the consistency of that human-animal interaction from the feline perspective is not present. And so, what are the emotional Impacts of failing to provide positive and consistent, predictable, human cat social interaction. Well, if we don't provide it, we're really at risk of increasing fear, anxiety, motivation, that the interpretation of the way in which we interact may actually be that they are, in, they're being threatened, a bit like the person on the high street being rugby tackled.

The other thing is that because of the way we handle, and we've said we can be quite intensely physical in our handling as a species, that we may actually find that there's some frustration of fear or anxiety because the cat's unable to use and avoid a strategy and they're unable to get away. There may also be the other side where the cat wishes to engage in social contact, but because it's being provided in a format that they find difficult and maybe even slightly oppressive, that there's a frustration of that ability of desire to have a desire-seeking interaction. It increases the potential for a reduction in the quality of the human cat relationship because there's this miscommunication between species can really lead to a deterioration in the benefits of the interaction from both species.

Perspectives, the client feels that they're not getting enough affection and love from the cat and the cat feels that they are being challenged and threatened in some way. And that is likely to lead to a reduction in the quality of life, of course, for the individual cat as well. The next pillar is the provision of an environment that respects the cat's sense of smell.

So we know that smell plays a very important role in feline security. So the ability to have an environment which is stable from a scent perspective is something which increase, increases the cat's perception of. Feeling safe and secure.

So, in addition to supplying access to physical privacy and physical security through the safe place, that we talked about at the beginning, it's also important to think about how safe the environment is from a cent perspective. And pheromone therapy can be, used as an adjunct to environmental. Optimisation, a way of ensuring that the available core territory is recognised as such, that it's identified as being a safe and secure location.

And we can also use pheromones that increase the sensation of personal security. So there's the security of the environment that you're living in, and there's also the perception that you are safe as an individual. Now we have a variety of products now available for us in terms of pheromone signals.

Most recently, we have this new product, Feyway Optimum. Now Feyway Optimum can be really beneficial in increasing feline security because it it's combining the benefits of naturally occurring pheromones. It's important to remember Feyway optimum is.

It's not natural. It isn't actually a pheromone in nature. This is a bioengineered pheromone.

And what they've done is they've taken constituents of the other facial pheromone and appeasing pheromones, so that the original peanut elloway Classic and eloway Friends products are analogues of naturally occurring pheromone signals. But the classic an analogue of the facial pheromone. The friends is an analogue of the appeasing pheromones.

They have different roles. And what they've done with Feyway Optimum is to combine constituents of those, pheromones to create this, this bioengineered pheromone complex. So there's no such thing as fellyway optimum in nature, that it's not an analogue of a naturally occurring pheromone.

But whilst its formulating this bioengineered pheromone, they've also worked on formulating it in a way that it binds very specifically to the bone marinasal one receptor. And so that hopefully increases the efficacy of the pheromone and certainly clinically we've been getting very good results withallu A Optimum. That doesn't mean that Velu A Classic, which is the one that signals security within the physical environment oreluway friends, which increases their sensation of personal security and not also beneficial.

The facial pheromone as I just said, is about territory, safety and security, appeasing pheromone about personal safety and security. We also need to remember that they deposit scent not only from their face and they have scent glands around their mammary area, but they also deposit scent signals when they're scratching. So it is important for them to have provision of suitable scratching locations within the home, part of the optimisation of the environment from the point of view of of having a sense of smell is related to scratching.

Obviously, there's also part of a sensation of a safe place from the presence of scratching as well, and there is also a visual component to that signalling. When they're providing. In those scratching locations, we need to think about height and we think we need to think about sturdiness of the post, because cats need to be able to scratch at full height, so they need to be able to get a decent height purchase on their, scratch post, but also they need a secure place to scratch on, not something that's going to be moving about as they scratch on it.

So having something that's sturdy and fixed is also helpful. If the cat is cat bit responsive, we can use that in order to attract them towards the locations where we want them to scratch and sadly, fairly scratch the product that used to have the analogue of the semiochemical from the digital area of the cat is no longer commercially available. That actually was a very useful product to be able to try and increase their attraction to suitable scratching locations.

Now, in addition to providing a scent profile which enhances the sensation of security, when we're talking about the pillar of respecting the cat's sense of smell, we also need to think about avoiding challenging smells. So as well as thinking about positive sense through things like pheromones, what are the things that might challenge a cat in a domestic environment? Well, cats are very sensitive to smell, and they can be.

Sensitive to smells that we consider either to be insignificant or even very pleasant. So, here we've got things like household cleaner products and products that we put into the human environment to increase our sensation of a positive signal that could actually be aversive to cats. So things like ammonia and chlorine and citrus, for example.

And this video that I'll just play very briefly here also is about. The fact that the, fumes of alcohol can be quite aversive to cats, and some sadly when when caregivers come home a little bit inebriated from the pub, they may be more affectionate, less inhibited, that can lead to problems in terms of the pillar of providing predictable and consistent human interaction and combined with a problem in terms of smell, because they're breathing alcohol fumes. You've probably heard enough, but you get the idea this person who's very inebriated and very happy, very pleased to see his cat.

He's not only handling the cat in a more inappropriate way that could be seen as challenging but also breathing alcohol fumes over the cat as well. We also need to think about other ways in which there may be challenging scents within an environment. So it might be that they're challenged by scents from other cats.

So here we've got this cat that's coming through the cat flat now, this, ginger and white cat does not live at this address. This is an intruder cat. And just see what happens as he comes in.

There's his little present on his way in, his little stray up against the sofa. He then trots in, wanders around the house, goes and sees if there's any food in the cat's bowl. And then, at the point when this cat decides that it's time to leave, here we go, and there we go.

Another signal. Of scent and that you see that scent from the intruder inside the house is going to decrease that sensation of security. They may also feel insecure from challenging scents from their own deposits, things like litter trays that are not being cleaned out sufficiently.

And we also need to think about respecting the cat's sense of smell within the veterinary environment, so avoiding challenging smells in the veterinary environment would involve making sure we clean our consulting rooms. Now, obviously we do that from a hygiene perspective. But remember that cats also leave olfactory signals.

We're all very familiar with those little sweaty paw prints that are left on the consulting room table. From the cat. And that contains so-called alarm pheromones.

So it is really important that we're cleaning up those deposits effectively, so we're not giving that fear, related alarm pheromone signal to the next feline patient that comes through the door. And so, we might need to think about not just cleaning the tables effectively, which can be difficult. To clear, depending on what sort of services we've got.

Things like asking caregivers to bring towels with them that we can put onto the table so that the, alarm pheromone from that cat goes onto their towel, they take it home and wash it and leaves less residue of alarm pheromone in your consult room. Remember, this would be a separate towel to anything that's in the cat carrier, because otherwise, the one that's In the cat carrier may already have, scent on it, alarm pheromone on it from the car journey. So asking caregivers to be in a separate towel, or if you're using towels of your own within the veterinary practise to maybe pre-treat those with Ferway classic spray as well before you use them.

Obviously, depending on the surface of your consultium table, the other thing to just remember is we want to avoid them being slippy. So emotional impact of not respecting the cat's sense of smell is that we're more likely to create fear anxiety, and we increase the potential for behavioural responses to those protective emotions such as increased hiding, also problems of indoor elimination and. And of marking, so of using their own communicative skills through marking to try and improve the sense of security or elimination problems because they perceive the places where they're expected to, defecate and urinate are not safe.

And then finally, we have the 5th pillar which is providing multiple and separate environmental resources. When we talk about environmental resources, we talk about things like food, water, toileting areas, somewhere to scratch, which we've talked about already, play areas, resting areas, sleeping areas. Anything that is essential for a feline to survive would be a resource.

So the 5 most important ones are food, water, resting places, and latrines. But we also need to remember that for cats, the ability to access their territory, to be able to patrol the territory and to check it for security on a regular basis, is also an important resource. So the ability to either enter and exit their territory altogether, so going out into the outside world or just being able to move around the indoor secure secure territory easily and without obstructions so that they can patrol and check.

That is also an important resource. And the provision of immediate and unhindered access to resources is also an an actual need as far as cats are concerned, because they are socially not obligate, because they don't work in, groups in order to survive, because the survival is their own concern. They don't delegate well.

And therefore they have a need to have free and immediate access to resources. And that's important in single cat households, as well as multi-cat households. Obviously, in multi-cat households, there's more risk that they're being forced potentially to share vital resources, and therefore, that this fundamental.

Need of free and immediate access is being compromised. So distribution of resources according to the social groupings within the household is important. We said already that we're going to have done that affiliative behaviour map, of the household we're looking at to make sure we know how many social groups we're dealing with.

So what we don't want is this, because we can see here with these litter trays and these feed bowls, this lining up of resources, which potentially comes from this idea of of N + 1, so the number of cats equals the number of resources plus 1. We think more in terms of the L +1 rule, so the number of cats equals the number of locations of resources plus 1, then that leads us to a better level of distribution. So the resources of food and water are particularly important.

Cats are solitary feeders, actually stressful to eat with other cats, and so it's really important that we provide the provision of food in a way in which cats can engage with that food without any impact from other cats. So when a cat. Is using a resource, ideally, they shouldn't be able to see another resource or another cat while they're using that resource.

And we also need to think, when we're thinking about, feeding, that not only is it when they're consuming the food, but it's also during the period of food preparation, where there's an expectation of food that they also benefit from being solitary. They also cannot, do not have the same level of motivation to drink separate from eating as we do and dogs do. So the fact that they drink and eat separately, that they're different motivations, means that water I Ideally, should be in a separate location from food, but also that water needs to be provided in a very optimal way because their motivation to drink is fairly low, so it's important that they are, that they have optimised water facilities.

In terms of, toileting, they need privacy. So toileting is a behaviour that makes cats quite vulnerable, so at the point where they're actually urinating or defecating, because they obviously don't have a group structure, they're on their own and you're quite vulnerable at that point. It's very important that toileting areas are in quiet, undisturbed.

Private locations away from the hubbub of the human activity or away from activity of other pets in the household or other cats. And we can go again to quite elaborate lengths in order to protect these resources with sort of cat furniture for for litter trays, etc. Can also be more basic and use things like cardboard boxes.

So when we're thinking about this pillar of providing multiple and separate resources, it's about thinking about how those are that's done so that every cat has free and immediate access. And that's something that can be very difficult, of course, within a hospital environment. They may be able to free and immediately access the resource as far as other cats are concerned because they're not housed with other cats.

But they need a safe and secure environment in which they can gain access to these resources whilst feeling safe. And the positioning of food safety. In a way that there is a potential for distractions.

So at the front of the cage, which is, you know, very commonly where we would place things like food bowls and water bowls in a hospitalisation cage because it's ease of maintenance and access. But is that a good location as far as the cat is concerned, in order to, meet this need. Remember, a need, not a Want in terms of the five pillars of environmental needs.

So trying to avoid placing the ball just inside the front of the cage is helpful. Trying to place it closer to the back of the cage, but then we might need to think about, the way in which we, we incorporate that, into our working lives. And we don't see it as, something that's kind of hindering us and holding us up.

Providing as much spacing, and as much visual protection of those resources as possible, is also beneficial. So what's the emotional impact then if we don't provide multiple and separate environmental resources? Well, definitely we will increase the risk of that fear, anxiety motivation again.

But remember that the motivation that leads to engagement with resources, so that's. Desire seeking motivation may also be frustrated. So they're motivated to eat or to drink, but they can't get access to that resource because it's too close to another resource or it's already been utilised by another cat, etc.

That that may lead to frustration. And frustration of fear or anxiety, because if they are feeling fearful and anxious and overwhelmed by the presence of other social groups in the household, and then they have to run the gauntlet of those other social groups just in order to gain access to crucial resources such as food. Then their fear, anxiety motivation may be leading them to avoid that interaction, but their their need to fulfil their their nutritional needs may actually mean that they can't protect themselves and you get frustration of the fear anxiety system.

That leads of course to the increased potential for decreased appropriate use of resources, so things like toileting behaviour away from latrines, because the latrines are not actually available in the right way or drinking from the dog's bowl or from puddles outside because the water is not being presented in a way that fulfils these needs. Also, there may be potential for increased tension between cats in the household and maybe even overt conflict. So, when we think about the indoor environment and the veterinary environment, we think in terms of fulfilling these five pillars in order to optimise the environment.

And I mentioned at the beginning that we should also think about the outdoor environment in order to minimise the potential for feline stress, so we may need to think about that provision of things like significant scratching places in the outdoor environment, making sure that we block access by other cats, that, that doesn't necessarily mean, that we are seeing out, it's also about them seeing in. We provide patrolling and observational opportunities and also things like hiding places and and good advantageous vantage points within the environment, maybe by, you know, putting up shelves in trees or providing outside cat furniture in order to provide the ability to patrol and observe the environment from a position of safety. We may also need to think about providing outdoor toilets if we've got highly populated feline neighbourhoods, it may be that the cat is struggling to be able to access a suitable outside the tree without running the gauntlet of other cats, and we may need to think about how we might provide outdoor toileting facilities which are always accessible and always safe.

So environmental optimisation is different from environmental enrichment, and why is it a veterinary matter? Well, if we don't cater for these needs, as we've seen by going through the pillars, that results in the potential for a protective emotional bias, more. Fear anxiety, more potential for frustration.

That increases the risk of developing problem behaviours, certainly increasing things like interca tension, indoor marking, for example, but it also can impact on physical health because of its effect through. For example, the physiological stress state, leading to things like internal medicine issues, so things like FIC for example, but also can lead to behavioural responses such as over grooming or overeating, which have physical health implications. So offering appropriate advice to cat caregivers about environmental optimisation within the home is a really important welfare consideration and consideration of our veterinary environment from the point of view of the feline environmental needs is also important.

Because we know that as well as this emotional impact, which we've talked about tonight, that that when we have that bias towards protective emotion and we have resulting chronic physiological stress, that's a risk factor for cats living in domestic environments, not only from an emotional health perspective, but also because of its potential to impact on physical health. So thank you very much for listening and hopefully we've just got a a few moments for for questions if you want to put those in the chat box. Wow, thank you very much for that Sarah.

I really, really enjoyed that and there's so many things to think about for my own cats at home and in practise as well, so we can make it better for cats generally all round. So, there's no questions coming through at the moment. So I'll give you guys just a couple, just a minute just to see if there's any questions that you'd like me to put through to Sarah this evening.

And so I'll leave that, if you pop that into the question and answer box, that would be wonderful. I've got one I've got a question for you, Sarah. So what would you recommend to clean up, like the alarm pheromones that You're saying that they would, when they leave the little sweaty paw pads around on the tables.

Is there anything that you would recommend to clean that, to be able to clear that up properly? What would you recommend? Yeah, remember that, that they are proteinous, the, the, the pheromone deposits.

So you want something that's gonna break down, the sort of protein. Component, of the, of the, pheromone. There's something like a biological cleaner of some sort.

And just be careful about anything that really replaces it with a very, intense sense of signal. So we don't want things that are strongly perfumed. We want things that have got some sort of protein.

Breaking down components. So biological washing powder type, or washing, agent solutions are good. But a lot of the enzymatic type cleaners that we would use within a veterinary practise environment will break down that protein component, but just avoid things that are scented as well.

Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you. And OK, one more question for me.

We, for the, what would you recommend to have plugged in in the your cattery in our, in our cattery actually the cattery, any catteries in the hospitals. Would it be the Fellyway optimum that you're recommending now over the Felyway Classic or? Yeah, I, I think the advantage of the Optimum is that you're gonna get the benefits of both the, that personal and that, location security.

At the moment, what we, we don't have quite as much evidence, and, obviously, evidence-based profession, and we have a lot of evidence for Teleway Classic and Fayway friends because they've been around for longer.alway Classic is the one that we've got most evidence for use in. A veterinary environment, but I would certainly personally use, Optimum, because I think Optimum gives us, hopefully, the benefits of both.

And, and I'm sure as the research gets, performed, we'll, we'll, we will build up an evidence base, for Fayway Optimum as well. So certainly, I would encourage people to trial with Felar-Ra optimum and see if you, if you feel you'll get better results with that. That's wonderful, thank you very much, Sarah.

I'll be speaking to our suppliers department, I think tomorrow morning. Thank you. So there's no other questions that have come through, so I think you've, it was such a thorough talk about everything, so yeah, I, I think in everyone's we've got plenty to take away back to practise and .

Utilise for, to make things better for cats in practise and at home as well. So thank you very much, Sarah, for an absolutely wonderful talk this evening. Thank you very much, Dawn, in the background who's sorting out all of the, the technical, technical, stuff for us.

And if you would like to have a recap of this webinar again, it will all, it'll be back onto the webinar website tomorrow. So, for me and everyone this evening, thank you very much and good night.