Hello there. Welcome to this Webinar on feline behaviour Fundamentals. Thank you for being with us and thank you to Webinar vet for the invitation to deliver this Webinar.
My name is Linda Ryan. I am a registered veterinary nurse, a veterinary technician, specialist in both behaviour and oncology. I'm a certificated clinical animal behaviourist for cats and dogs, and I'm also a certified animal trainer.
I live and work in the new forest in the UK. And I run inspiring pet teaching, which is my behaviour referral consultancy. I work with, feline patients all over the UK.
I love working with vets, supporting colleagues and, helping practises with their behaviour cases. I work with clients and clinical cases and I also do lots of teaching. So this evening, or whenever you're listening to this, I hope you find this a useful introduction to who cats are.
Why they do what they do, what makes them so special. And they are very special. And how where they've come from is such an important fundamental to understand, in terms of how we care for them and give them the best life that we can in our human controlled environments.
So let's get started. OK, let's start at the very beginning. What is a cat?
Well, our domestic cat that we're talking about today is Felis catus or felis sylvestris catus. And this is the most recently evolved feline and the one that we've come to love and adore. And, yeah, our little beautiful pet and domestic cats.
And these guys come from the fly family, of which there are three genera or main genre. There's the panthera which are the roaring cats, and they have an anatomical difference, which is their hyoid apparatus. So lions, tigers, leopards, snow and clouded leopards, Jaguars They all have this, different hyoid apparatus which allows roaring hence the name.
Then we have our sins and that is our cheetah Cheetahs are syx and then felis, which are our small cats. Our domestic cat is one of these, and wild cats are very, very similar to our, domestic cats. And that's kind of where they've come from.
So that's Fela Sylvestris and they are subspecies and they are capable of interbreeding, which is problematic in terms of conservation. If we think about our Scottish wildcat problem, we have very few left who are genetically Scottish Wild cat. And many of them have interbred with our domestic cat.
So, yeah, they're they're very, very similar in terms of what they do, how they live and how they breed. So all felines are carnivorous and they are part of the carnivora order, and this also includes things like bears and cats and weasels. So that's our beginning bit of who they are and where they've come from.
And regarding all of the Fela species, there are some commonalities. And there are changing and evolving understandings coming through of where these cats have come from how they've evolved. But it's generally accepted that they are predatory hunting mammals.
They have very keen senses, of which hearing sight and smell are extremely important. And we'll talk about those as we move through. There are 37 recognised feid species, and they generally have this sort of classic rounded head and a skeletal structure which is common to all of them.
They've likely evolved from a common cat ancestor once upon a time, possibly probably over towards Asia 10 to 12 million years ago, and by about 3 million years ago, there were a wide variety of fid a species across the globe, and they inhabit most places on planet Earth, with the exception of the Arctic and Antarctic, and they are not native to Australia. There's a global distribution which has been facilitated by changing sea levels, which is allowed migration, and then those sea levels have changed to cut areas off. So we have discrete sort of enclaves of particular types of cat, which have then bred and become species or local specialities.
And they can thrive and survive in many geographical locations, and they're widespread due to their solitary nature, so they don't live in social groups. In many cases, like many of our social animals, they will move out and go away from everybody else. Hence they've drifted across our planet, and there are new species and populations being developed as the land masses have changed and as they've gone further a field and sort of bred and developed in, as I say in enclaves in different places within our planet, more commonalities in the fella species include the fact that they are carnivorous hunters and with the exception of lions who thrive in groups and hunt together in general.
They're solitary hunters, and they generally will only seek out others of their species to mate and or they live together to rear their young. Sometimes we do see group living, and that's where resources tend to be plentiful and there's no competition. And everybody can be secure in their location knowing that they've got everything that they want and need.
And very often those group living situations are familial, and they can also very often be feline female relatives as well. So they can live in close proximity if they have enough space and abundant resources. And they can also form really wonderful social relationships.
And we tend to think of cats as being completely solitary, but particularly our domestic cat. They're incredibly adaptable in terms of how they've changed their sociality to live with humans and in our human controlled environments and how we expect them to live. So our domestic cats are really quite remarkable in how they've changed from that solitary survivalist the cat.
The cat species are generally very territorial. They will patrol and actively defend their own area, and usually that's their hunting area, so that where they've got all of their resources because they're solitary. They don't share.
It's not a cat feature. Cats. You know, I often hear clients saying, Oh, they don't share well, And I'm like, of course, they're cats.
They're not designed to share. Cats are inherently selfish, and that's how they need to be. And they're also, very much need to have agency and feel in control of what's going on.
So that's really important, in part in terms of their territoriality and their solitary survivalist hunter nature. They will have, lots of highly developed skill sets for hunting, probably the most on earth. Because cats are amazing.
They have retractable claws, all except the cheetah. And in general, apart from lions, the males and females look fairly similar. So there's, less sexual dimorphism than we see in other species.
So focusing in a little bit more on our modern domestic cats that we are familiar with, their DNA is spread pretty much worldwide now. And this has come from felis sylvestris leaker, and lia is the original wild cat. So there is DNA, which has been found from localised and distinct populations or clusters where they have evolved in niche niches.
So, for example, we have the European wild cat. We have a Central Asian wild cat. There's a South African wild cat.
And they're all very, very similar often in looks and certainly in DNA to our domestic cat and felis sylvestris leaker, which from which our domestic cat evolved still survives Today they are a solitary nocturnal hunter. They have a very similar appearance to our domestic tabby cats. But they're a little bit lighter and sandier depending on where they live.
And, this species has dispersed sort of in the savannah, hence their colouring, and they have large territories due to due to low prey availability. And so it was these cats that we think that came in from the cold and started to become our modern domestic cats. But they're still out there today doing their wild cat thing.
So our domestic cat was first classified our felis catus, around the middle of the 17th century. And, they are probably considered a subspecies of the wild cat. So we could probably call them Felis sylvestris, catus and felis Sylvestris and felis Catus, as we mentioned, retain the ability to interbreed, and this can occur under natural conditions.
So when we have un neutered domestic cats and we have wild cats living in close proximity And of course, as we mentioned, this has become a conservation concern for various of these indigenous and original wild cats, such as the Scottish Wildcat, where there are diminishing populations of genetically distinct purebred wild cats. And they're trying really hard to save this amazing species. So watch this space.
Let's hope they can Let's hope they can do it. OK, so how did this wild cat become a lap cat? Well, again, there are emerging and changing pieces of evidence, and current thoughts are evolving as we speak.
But domestication probably started around 10,000 years ago, which is nothing in terms of evolution and development of species. And that was probably in and around the Middle East, where humans started to settle. And there's a record of a deliberately buried cat with the owner in a grave in Cyprus almost 10,000 years ago.
So domestication probably started before that because you wouldn't be burying a wild cat with you. So there are no native cats on Cyprus, So somebody obviously took a population of cats to Cyprus and loved these cats enough to bury with the caregiver. Or there was some significance.
And previously to that, the earliest records have been 2 to 3000 years ago, which again was very, you know, a blink of an eye in evolutionary history. And this was in ancient Egypt. But we know that it goes on that history goes back a lot further than that now.
So there is plenty of evidence of earlier association, and we know that the Egyptians had this strong association with cats and there have been skulls found in Egyptian cat burial grounds and these have been identified as feli sylvestris leaker, which is our Asian or North African wild cat. And so these guys again, as we mentioned, are thought to be our our ancestor to our modern domestic cat, and so we can see that there's been an association with humans going back quite some time and actually longer than we initially thought, but still not very long at all. So how did these amazing creatures become lap cats?
Well, we as humans, started to settle in the Middle East. We started to put down some roots, so humans were hunter gatherers. We were nomadic and in what's now known as Israel from 10,000 or more years ago, we started to store food because we were staying in one place and we very conveniently stored mice.
Or as humans would call it, we stored grain. And of course, this led to the rise in what we now know as the house mouse who came in and went, Thanks very much. Humans.
This is brilliant. I can come and live in your warm, secure grain stores and thanks very much for the grain. And the cat said, Well, I can come and live in your grain stores and thanks very much for the mice.
So this is kind of where we think it all started. So this attracted the wild cats who were living in relatively close proximity at that time. And those who were bolder, braver, more resilient were able to live more closely around humans, and that led to subsequent sort of taming.
They stayed close. They realised they were onto a good thing, and those that were doing well from a health perspective because they were getting well fed and tamer, self selected and, taming and domestication began at that point. So when we think about domestication, we want to remember that that is an entire species, whereas taming is an individual.
So in those days it would have probably been populations of tame individuals starting to develop, and that would have been our beginning stage of domestication. So again, there's archaeological evidence of pets in the fertile crescent. So we were keeping animals.
We were starting to to build that bond. And you know, there's there's so much evidence for human animal interactions and the human need to interact with animals going way back in the, anthropological records and cats were declared an official deity. We had the goddess bastet in Egypt.
Probably about 3000 years ago. Sadly, large numbers were sacrificed to bastet and mummified, and they actually farmed cats for this purpose. So cats were important, but not necessarily treated in the way that we would consider a deity should be treated and adored.
Because we all know that cats are deities, and by about 2000 years ago, there's evidence of spread throughout Europe, so those tame individuals which self selected, were starting to become more commonplace in human lives and worlds. But we have to ask ourselves if cats are truly domesticated. So domestication entails breeding care, reproduction and total control by humans of a species or a population.
And this really only applies to indoor only pedigree cats because other cats really, can do as they please in the majority of cases. And so really, we've only got complete control of a very small population of cats proportionally. So should we really consider them tame rather than domesticated?
So I think we could probably say that they're domesticated to a point, but they still retain a lot of their wild characteristics, and this is important to know when we're caring for them in the human controlled environment. And, I think we love that we love that wild side. We love the fact that cats are cats and cats do what cats do, and we can't control every piece of it.
And if you look at it in terms of domestication of other species like meat species, or egg producing species or the dog who works for us and does all sorts of things. Cats actually don't do anything for us really apart from, you know, we adore them. But back in the day, there wouldn't have really been any reason to domesticate cats because they were doing their job perfectly well as wild cats living in close proximity to us.
And, you know, again, if we think about it from their perspective, what do we do for them? Well, back in the day we provided mice, and, you know, we hope that we give them good quality of life as pet cats. But that again, there's a lot to chat about with that, so most cats, with the exception of probably a lot of the population of pedigree cats, which have been physically changed, sometimes beyond recognition, could potentially revert to a wild state and certainly within a couple of generations.
And they retain many traits of their, desert dwelling, solitary survivalist ancestor. So our domestic cats were historically kept for hunting rodents rather than for any other purpose, and they are really thought of as self domesticated and, unlike dogs, who we've massively changed, humans haven't significantly modified the innate behaviours by genetic selection in cats. What we're doing nowadays, for better or for worse and again, there's a lot to say there.
But let's keep to the point with this talk, is that we? What we've changed is appearance. We haven't changed behaviour in terms of our genetic selection of cats.
And I'm sure behaviour will come with appearance because cats, physical abilities or lack of them will be influential on what they can do and how they behave. So we are starting to see some genetic behavioural traits come with that, so you know, there's there's a lot that we've done, but there's a lot that we haven't done with cats. And we also need to remember that they retain their predatory nature, but potentially, they're also prey animals as well.
They're small, they're potentially vulnerable. And so they have this, you know, conflict of, you know, top predator, but also need to stay safe and control everything. So let's take a look at some of the behavioural characteristics that are retained in our domestic cats and why that's important for us to know and understand.
So if we think about the wild cat that our little cat would have developed from 75 to 80% of wild living cats daily activities so their time and energy is spent on food acquisition or feeding related behaviours. So they do a lot of the things that our domestic cats do like sitting around patrolling territory, playing and hunting. But the majority of what they do is really about sitting and waiting for prey or actively patrolling and pray seeking or catching and manipulating and eating prey.
So in this study, we can see that 69% of the wild cat's time was taken up with food acquisition or prey acquisition in some form. And then, of course, there's a, you know, a a fair amount of sleeping and resting a fair amount of other cat stuff. But the majority of that is food related or hunting related.
And then when we think about our little, domestic cats that live in our homes, their majority of time is spent sleeping and resting so that you can almost equal that. And then grooming is an awful lot of their time as well. They spend a lot of time sitting around.
They spend very small amounts of time patrolling territory, or in actual food acquisition. And is this because of how we choose to keep them? Would they choose to live more like their wild ancestors if we gave them that choice?
And can we facilitate that so that we can give them a more fulfilling, natural or opportunities for natural behaviours within our care? So when we think of our cat, we need to think of it as I hunt. Therefore, I am Felis Catus has unique anatomical, physiological, metabolic and behavioural adaptation adaptations consistent with a really strict carnivorous diet.
So this predatory species hunts for food. Our domestic species will scavenge for and eat free food. If they find it and particularly our street cats, or free living around human environments, they will scavenge.
But hunting is generally their thing. They generally hunt within a specific area. They specified territory, and, they can generalise and be flexible.
But very often they are specialist. So if you're a mouse cat, you're a mouse cat. If you're a rabbit cat, you're a rabbit cat.
And when we think about our Scottish wild cats, for example. They like rabbits, and you will generalise if you need to, but you're gonna. Your food preferences are fairly fixed as a kitten and sometimes even in utero.
So you're gonna stick with what you know. So bird cats are bird cats in general, but they can be flexible. And our, particularly our domestic pet cats, are very adaptable.
Cats are obligate carnivores. I think we all know this. The only nutrients in animal tissue can meet their specific nutritional requirements.
They must have a high protein, moderate fat and minimal carb diet. But they need all of these in their diets, but they need to be balanced. Well, taurine, methionine, cystine and retinol are essential.
And that's, you know, really important that they get these from their diet and from the protein in their diet. And they cannot be vegan. They cannot survive.
So we need to be really aware when we're imposing modern fads and guiding clients through modern fads of feeding and, husbandry practises that we really think about who cats are and what they need in terms of that and understanding, this can help us in getting our messages across. So our little hunter is opportunistic. So however they obtain food, cats vary activity patterns, depending on food availability.
So if food's difficult to acquire, they're gonna eat more within a single meal. Whereas if there are prolific resources, they will potentially snack very often. And the motivation to hunt is always there.
It's only loosely related to hunger. So if you think about it, you're not gonna only hunt when you're hungry. If you have a 50% chance of not catching the thing, you're gonna hunt when you have the opportunity to do so.
And so the motivation to consume is always hunger related. But the motivation to hunt is always there, and cats are stimulated by movement. And so hunting always.
Oh, sorry. Not always being successful is something that if a cat sees an opportunity, movement or a rustle in the undergrowth, they don't wait to be hungry. Just in case, they can't survive on depleted energy resources.
They may starve, and so if prey is encountered encountered, they will hunt and killing is increased when hungry and decreased. When it's large or dangerous prey feeding behaviours go with their evolutionary history. This purely carnivorous species throughout their development, has relied on hunting, so feeding behaviours have evolved to fit this lifestyle, and their lifestyle has evolved to fit their feeding behaviour.
So searching, hunting, hunting, catching of prey are fundamental behaviours that cats need to do. And if you think about them in our domestic cats, the behaviours that we see as part of the hunting sequence also look very much like play. So again we can simulate this and we can, provide for this.
And then our post. Perennial behaviours relate, usually to protracted grooming and resting, and then the whole cycle begins all over again. Free living cats are solitary when food is scarce.
And they are diffuse. As we've already said, when it's plentiful and concentrated, they can potentially live in larger groups and survive and do OK. They will typically eat between TW 10 and 20 small meals throughout a 24 hour period, and that can be day or night.
And the average small rodent is about 30 calories, which is about 8% of their daily requirement, so they need to eat little and often and again. This is useful for us to know in terms of how we feed and provide for our cats. The pattern likely rela relates to that cat prey relationship, so they're crepuscular.
So we're gonna see higher levels of activity busy cats actively patrolling, looking for prey, or playing a lot and being very active and energetic in the home at dawn and dusk again. This is helpful for us when we're advising clients, play with them when they're crepuscular, feed them and give them activity feeders at those crepuscular times. And repeated hunt hunting cycles are therefore required throughout the day and throughout the evenings, but are much more prolific at those crepuscular times when prey are most active.
And cats, of course, because they're clever will avoid bad weather if possible. As well as hunting if there's a perceived threat, so they need to feel safe, and they need to have control of what's going on around them. So feeding behaviours in the domestic environment cats need an outlet for predatory behaviour.
It's not optional, it's fundamental, and feeding, may reduce the time spent hunting, but it won't alter hunting behaviour or the need to perform hunting behaviour and hunting behaviour, as we said, is opportunistic and can often look a little bit like pla prey. Play. Should I say so.
This is a little example Here. This is my little cat, Olive, who's just finished her breakfast. And she has wandered into the bathroom sitting in the shower tray, watching a spider crawl up the wall so that movement has stimulated her hunting, watching, patrolling behaviours.
And unbeknownst to this poor little innocent spider walking up the wall, his moments are numbered because the motivation to hunt is always there, even though she's already had her breakfast, she's going to respond to this movement so the prey drive the predatory drive is strong. Cats will actually stop eating to make it kill, so if they're in the middle of eating something and they see an opportunity, they're gonna take it and then potentially come back to what they'd already started. Or leave it and enjoy the new thing.
This allows for multiple kills and optimises food availability. Generally, cats will eat away from their water source. So again, if we think about it from the cat's perspective, if you come back to your your safe.
Place your core territory every day with your food multiple times a day and you eat in the same safe place and the guns and juice of that. That prey is kind of soaking into the ground where you eat. That's not gonna be a place where you're gonna drink from, because that's gonna be contaminated.
And if you drank from the puddle right beside the mouse. Gunge, you're probably gonna get ill pretty quickly, so cats will wander away from where they've eaten in order to drink. And again, this informs where we place their resources and how we should set them up for success.
So we shouldn't have food beside water. And also, of course, food and water would never be around toting areas so cats would move away to go to somewhere secluded and safe and less risk of contaminating their feeding and drinking areas. So again, this informs how we arrange their resources within the home and within the hospital.
And then they would sleep in a safe area within their core territory, but not where they toilet, not where they drink and not where they eat. And again remember that cats need to be solitary eaters. They are solitary survivalists.
They are solitary hunters, and they are solitary eaters. So we do. We don't want cats having to eat within sight of each other.
It is potentially stressful. Even if there's a very strong relationship between cats and cats shouldn't have to eat in a busy place where the humans eat. I think humans naturally feed animals in the kitchen for some reason, that's often a very stressful place for cats to eat.
So take it to their place where they feel safe, where it's quiet and where they can eat in peace by themselves are particularly important in multi Catt households. So if we think about the hunting sequence again, this is, hardwired modal action pattern. So first we have search the environment, and that can be active or static so it can be sit weight.
Or it can be active patrol they locate, and that can be through sound or vision, and that will simulate or stimulate the next part of the hunting move, sequence, which is movement and that is approach the prey, which is stalk, chase or pounce, and often these come in a sequence then it's capture. At that point, they will often either kill or manipulate. It really depends, so if it's a large piece of prey, they will often kill it immediately with a bite to the back of the neck.
And then they may manipulate it by raking it with their back feet once it's dead. If it's a small prey, it may be manipulated before the kill or after the kill. And this is where we get the tossing rated batting.
And we don't really know what this behaviour is about. There is. It's postulated that it's related to the conflict and excitement and emotional arousal of the sort of risk of putting yourself in a vulnerable position in order to catch your prey versus the reward of catching it.
And the relief of of having food and not having anything bad happen to you during that time. And so we've got this sort of high level of emotional arousal and, you know, we think that that is some way related to this, manipulation behaviour. We can also get really high high, volume vocalisation at this time as well, and this is often when the cat is returning to their safe place.
And again, do we know what that's all about? I don't know. We could postulate that if it's a mamma cat bringing prey back, they're alerting kittens.
I don't know. But again, from an evolutionary perspective, does that make sense to draw attention to yourself when you're vulnerable, draw people back to your kittens That might catch and kill you or not necessarily people but other animals. I don't know.
Then they will generally carry it to their safe place. There may be more manipulation at that point. It may be that the kill happens then, or the kill may have happened prior, and then it's consume.
Consume usually happens head to tail, and, they may eat the fur. Or they may, not they may eat feathers, or they may pluck feathers and leave you with a fine mess all over your bathroom floor, and then they groom and rest, and then it begins all over again. So play looks very like that, right?
So when cats are hunting and when cats are playing in their minds, as far as we're aware, there's very little distinction. So these behaviours need to happen. And very many of the behaviours that we see as part of the hunting sequence look very much like prey.
And they will a, sorry hunting. They will approach play as if they were hunting. And so we always want to think about creating appropriate ways for them to play, which are stimulating, which end in some sort of termination or satisfaction of that hunting sequence.
It may be that they end it with a kill. So it could be that puzzle feeders are great because there's all that sort of stalk, pounce, manipulate and then kill. And then the food comes out.
Or it may be that we have a play with a wand toy and end it with a puzzle feeder so that they can get that manipulate consume piece. And then always thinking about playing like prey. So think mouse.
Think bird, think insect when you're playing. So moving a wand toy away from the cat along the floor in straight lines, perhaps a long furniture or skirting boards never moving towards the cat because no sensible pre, prey item would move towards the cat, birds would flit to and fro, perhaps across and then away, and insects might buzz about. So we want to think about what prey items might look like and play in that way to make it, stimulating and realistic and really enriching for our cats and fulfilling for them as well.
So when thinking about feeding behaviours, let's also think about food. So many cats are sensitive to food's physical form. IE.
How it feels in their mouth, the odour, the taste, temperature is very important, so they usually like it at fresh kill body temperature. And they don't particularly like things which are hot. And they definitely, don't like things which are cold and often cold Food can mask the flavour and the odour, so we wanna think about kind of blood.
Temperature is a great temperature to feed at, and again, this is useful for us to know with our our ill patients or helping clients to understand how to feed cats. So, they also we want to think about when they're fed a specific texture or type of food, particularly in Kitten Hood. They may refu refuse other foods, so when they're kittens.
We want to think about getting them really comfortable with eating a a diversity of tastes and textures and types of food so that they have a the enrichment and stimulation of lots of choice and enjoyment in their lives. But also, if ever we need to change their diet later on, they're not going to be stuck in their ways if you like. There are also, of course, individual preferences that we need to think about, and these are very often influenced by early experiences.
So it may be that, for better or for worse, so very stuck in their ways and fixed. Or it may be that they are fixed on eating, particularly unhealthy foods, which are not right for them. So if we have breeders feeding inappropriately, it can be very hard sometimes to get cats onto an appropriate diet, because that's what they've been fed when they're young.
So they're going to form their food preferences very early in life. A lot of it will relate to that early learning time, sort of between, two and 7 to 8 weeks, just after they're weaned. A huge amount of it will also relate to maternal feeding habits.
What Mum eats you're gonna emulate and you're gonna prefer, because that's what Mum brings you, particularly if you're a wild cat. So if Mum's a rabbit cat, you're gonna favour rabbits. And so we also know that food preferences can be formed in utero.
There was a crazy study that was done. I think back in the seventies, if my memory serves me right where they fed pregnant cats bananas don't ask. And the kittens were born with a preference for bananas.
So, we were We need to remember that if we're trying to transition a cat onto a new diet and it's not working or they're not accepting whatever we're offering them within the hospital or whatever, it may be that we have these fixed food preferences, and we need to transition incredibly carefully and slowly because once cats decide they've got an aversion to something that's, you know, that's that, so this is poten potentially relevant when we're thinking about clinical diets as well. But they're also, we always describe cats as both neophobia and Neil, so that means they are inquisitive and curious. Curiosity we all know about cats and curiosity so often they will it be exploratory if they're feeling behaviorally well.
And, they are feeling their mental well being is in a good place. They will often experiment and try new things. But if they're stressed, or, they're anxious or their their mental health is not ideal, then they may very quickly revert to No, I only eat this and I can't eat anything else.
I'd rather die so things to bear in mind. All right, let's think about their social structure. So a lot of cats sociality relates to that solitary survivalist territory is important.
I'm a predator. I don't need anybody else. I rely on myself, and so that's something to bear in mind when we're thinking about who they are.
As social beings and so as domestic cats, our pet cats have really become quite socially flexible. They are very often kept in quite close proximity with other species, more of their own species, and they've done very well amazingly, and they cope even though it may not be their first choice. Some can actively enjoy it.
Some cope. Of course, some don't cope. But they can be quite socially flexible again, thinking back to their wilder ancestor, their sociality and their proximity to each other and their social bonds depends on the availability and distribution and predictability, which is so important for cats, consistency and predictability of resources.
As we've already said so, females can, co rear young, potentially related females sisters, aunties, mums and daughters. The female would be the sole food provider for young males are not involved. They tend to leave at puberty and go off and find their own territories, and then they only come together to mate.
They may mate with multiple partners, so the male may mate with multiple females, and the female may mate with multiple males, meaning that we can sometimes have kittens from the same litter with different dads. And when we have ample resources and, territory security, we see affiliative behaviours in many situations, and we can often be lucky enough to see this in our pet cats. But it's not always guaranteed, and we usually say our best opportunity for cats to have affiliated relationships is if they are raised together from young and they've got on well from a young age.
But this isn't always a guarantee that that's gonna work. Well, but it's our best opportunity. And then we can see lovely behaviours like our lovely, aloe rubbing aloe grooming, which is all about transferring a communal scent onto each other so that everybody smells like each other.
And we're all part of that same social group. So we we might see mutual grooming where there's, very relaxed cats taking turns. And then we might also see play, which is gorgeous, and we all love to see play.
So play is most commonly seen pres social maturity, which is kind of 2 to 4 ish years in cats. And, we very commonly see it in Kitten Hood and also in, the juvenile period. And then it decreases as, as cats get older.
We see less social play, but cats do remain playful, and again that's related to the predatory nature. But also I think some part of domestication gives us some level of neotenous, so they do remain a little bit more carefree and kitten like, and part of that probably relates to them being catered for in every way and having complete security and having ample of everything. So we love play, and we usually see that in bonded or affiliative cats.
But the absence of play does not mean that cats are not bonded. But we will very often see those bonded cats will show other affiliative behaviours like the aloe rubbing, aloe grooming, deliberately sleeping in physical contact, twined tail, all of that lovely stuff. And when we do see them play together, it's generally quiet.
It's reciprocal and mutual. There'll be turn taking. There'll be little breaks and the claws are in and they will be.
It might be in a state of relatively high emotional arousal, but it's all very lovely and, you know, consensual. And so again, if we're seeing an absence of that absence of play may or may not signify they have a relationship, or we also want to make sure that we're determining the difference between play and fighting, where we might have more noise. It may not be as mutual.
There may be claws out there may be chasing and hiding, so it's a really good idea to get, get good at looking at that and understanding what we're seeing and getting clients to to notice that as well. But cats can live very well in the home and not have a antagonistic relationship, but just not do anything kind of overtly affiliative. They can potentially cope.
But the absence of mutual grooming, the absence of sleeping together, the absence of play usually means that there is one cat and one cat rather than two cats, if that makes sense, but, yeah, it's lovely to see them play. And as I say we we mostly see a lot of object play and social play when they're kittens, and then it tends to be more object play when they're older and moving on to talk about territory. So I usually think the three big pieces that we need to think about are the sociality, the predatory nature and the territoriality of cats.
So, territory really matters to cats. Size and access really matters, so we need to make sure that we have the right food and resource availability and distribution. And, as we say, the consistency and predictability of that they need to have shelter and safety, and feline population will have M opportunities within that.
But generally they will live completely separately. Generally, cats will actively avoid physical contact or interactions with known cat. Oh, sorry, unknown cats, and we usually refer to them as distance communicators.
So they'll send a WhatsApp or a text or an email rather than get together and actually have a conversation. So because there isn't enough to share because fight is potentially risky and costly or fatal, or may cause, you know, problems with your reproductive status or your kittens, you're not gonna make physical contact unless you have to. So we'll we'll have things like, spraying, scratching, facial rubbing, sometimes even middling to mark territories so that cats can communicate with each other at a distance as to who's been where, when, and they can actively avoid each other.
We see a lot more territory use in free ranging or un neutered cats. And in neutered cats and, females, we tend to see a lot less territory use and those which are un neutered and male. We tend to see a lot more, and males can really roam for a long, long way.
Particularly when there are females in season. And this is from, the Sarah Ellis and John Bradshaw, project, which was, I think, on channel four, where they put collars on cats and looked at their territory, which is absolutely fascinating. So home ranges for males can be up to three or four times that of females.
And more so, if they're un neutered, so they they will use a lot of territory. So as we've mentioned, all cats are territorial, and they tend to have what we call a home range A territory and a core territory. So your home range is the general amount of space that you use and that you will go hunting in and that you will patrol.
Your territory is kind of generally the area that you actively defend and, actively mark with scent and communication signals and keep other cats out. But there may be lots of overlap in the in the home range, but there'll be less overlap in the territory. And then the core territory is your bedroom.
If you like. It's your safe place where you raise your young you sleep, you groom, you eat you, that's your your place where you're gonna have your shelter and it's your safe space where you might play if you feel safe to do so. And so again, we want to think about this in the home environment.
Can we have all of this for our domestic cats? So we might want to think about if we have a multi Catt household, Each cat needs its own core territory, ideally, then its own territory. And then they might have the, the home range where it overlaps as long as there are cats who can live happily together.
So that's really important. So free ranging versus pet cats. There's a lot of difference.
And we also want to think about the impact that how we keep cats might have. So if cats have outdoor access, their home territory may be in their indoor territory may be reduced in size because they can go out and about, and they can have some increased space outside. And that relieves the pressure.
But then we also want to think about outdoor access, can reduce the size of their, their roaming area, their their home range, because there are other cats in the area. Or there's an inconsistency of changing cats. You know, people move house, somebody gets a new cat, and so that can confine them emotionally because they can't cross those barriers.
So it can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, depending on what else is going on. And of course, there's that risk of other cats in the environment coming into their their core territory, which would be disastrous for most cats. And then we can have the you know, the things like, humans that aren't particularly kind to cats or that scare cats dogs.
There's so many different reasons where outdoor space may be confined, even though there are no physical barriers. Indoor only cats. We completely control their physical space through the size of the house and the size of the space we provide for them.
And if they're con confined and or it's a multi Catt household, their territory becomes very small indeed, and that's completely outside their control. So if we think about these individuals who consistency and predictability and agency is so incredibly important and they've got these tiny spaces it can be very, very stressful for them, especially if they're not socially bonded. And we can see an example of this here where all cats want to sleep on the same bed.
This is an example of a client sending me a a thing going. Look how much they love each other. They're all on the bed together, and my cat behaviourist I takes a look at that and goes, Hm, They all want the same thing.
They probably don't have enough of everything. They have to have the same things. And all of them have got their eyes squeezed shut their faces pointing away from each other.
And it's one cat and one cat and one cat. All three are sort of hiding from each other, so it can be really hard on our cats if they don't have everything that they want and need freely and immediately available to them and their own space and territories. And of course, as we said, neuter status and cat density and the type of housing that we put them in their favoured hunting locations all have an impact on that.
And that's something that we need to think about when we're considering having them in human controlled environments. So let's bring it all together. Sociality territoriality, predatory nature are all interlinked and all account for many of the observable behaviours that inform the needs of our cats and how we care for them.
But there's more to it than just observable behaviour, of course, and there's more to it than associative and non associative learning. These are not stimulus response machines. They are not driven entirely by instinct.
They are a product of so many individual factors, including, you know, their intelligence, their cognitive ability and their their cats are amazing problem solvers. They can do cognitive mapping. They can do, concepts of object permanence where you know, if you don't remember that something's been there and if you can't see it, it's not there.
Then you're never going to catch a mouse that goes behind a tussock of grass. They're brilliant at observational learning. They're really good at trial and success or trial and error learning.
So cats are really clever, and their intellects are driven by their experiences, their individual temperaments, their nature, and all of the things that make a cat, a cat. And then, of course, cats are emotional. Cats feel they feel joy and anti joy.
They experience suffering. And so we want to ensure that they're experiencing positive or engaging emotional states through how we care for them and how we set them up. And we want to prevent or protect them from negative or protective emotional states.
And we know that emotion elicits behaviour. And again, it's not just about stimulus response or driven by instinct. It's about that product of your your cognitive ability, your emotional ability, your physical health, the nature of being a cat, your social ability.
And we know that cats can form amazing social bonds with both humans and other species. They've made extraordinary adaptations to living with us. And one of the things that I find amazing is facial and voice recognition that we've seen in studies where cats can recognise their specific humans.
And they have developed their vocalisations to talk to humans. A different development of certain sort of, I hate to use the word neediness, but really interdependent human cat bonds. And this is very often seen with, you know, our highly bred cats, versus the independence and lack of tameness that we might see in other types of breeding.
So there is so much to cats, and we're looking at the individual components, but we really need to bring that all together in the individual and look at who that cat is. Their senses are massive. They have a huge impact on behaviour.
So they have highly developed senses of vision hearing, scent and, sorry touch and taste. And we know that they have high levels of, monocular vision so that they've got good levels of peripheral vision. They're highly attuned to movement so that the slightest rustle or move that's it.
Their predatory drive is kicked in. They can function in low light because their prey is crepuscular, so they very often have many more rods than cones. And some would consider vision to be the cat's primary sense.
They don't see in bright colour. They don't see in black and white. They sort of live in this kind of greeny, yellowy, bluey black and white kind of kind of life.
That's they don't need particularly strong, acute sharp vision, because what they need to do is notice, movement and respond to it, and they can't see things which are very close to them, which I find really extraordinary. So whilst we might see things very sharply, theirs is a little blurry around the edges, but it's as good as it needs to be for a predator. Their hearing is amazing.
They can hear both very, very high and very, very low frequencies, including ultrasound. And they're particularly attuned to these high pitched squeaks and clicks that their prey might make that we might not be able to hear. And again we may consider that, hearing is a a very important sense, you know?
And who can tell whether primary and secondary, but they're both very, very important to cats. Touch is likely very similar to humans, and we also need to be aware of those vibrissae, which are so sensitive to touch and movement and help cats navigate and always being really mindful of how we interact with those. Taste is somewhat rudimentary because they are specialists, and they just need to eat mouse or bird or whatever.
They have a lot less taste buds than humans. They can't taste sweet, but of course, they can taste bitter. Which is the, signifier of poison Don't eat.
So they have very few taste buds, but scent is huge. Sorry. Scent is huge.
So olfaction they have around 200 million olfactory receptors. Whilst their sense of smell is somewhat less developed than dogs, it's far, far more developed than humans. And it's incredibly important to them.
And it can be a source of enormous stress as well. If we're not careful in terms of how we set up their environment, so strong smells things they can't avoid, or places that where we interrupt their group scent that they need to keep. So not only do they have a S, a sense of smell, but they also communicate via pheromones, which is a different system, via the Jacobson's organ, where they communicate and respond, and use behaviour such as facial rubbing, urine marking, scratching with the pheromones in the pores.
And so they will use all of these different types of ways to mark territory to create group scent, to bond, and to raise their kittens incredibly gorgeous and really important. And this is where the pheromone therapies come from. Is is these facial and inter mammary pheromones that cats secrete?
And then very often, when they're when they're scenting something or sensing a, a pheromone, we'll see this Fleming behaviour where we might see the mouth gate open in this classic way. So, the scent is just incredibly important. And we need to really respect that with cats, because if we're disrupting their scent, their scent profile or we're adding scent, which is stressful.
It can make life very, very hard for them. So considering cat sociality and the feline senses together, let's have a little think about their communication. And communication is all about achieving an outcome and sending information to another.
So it's usually about either distance increasing or distance decreasing. And in the case of cats, they're going to communicate in a cat specific way. If we're distance increasing, they're usually going to be increase communicating from a distance so that they don't have to have that close social interaction.
They can just leave scent marks, or if it's, to decrease distance, for example, with a bonded companion or a human or another, household animal. Then they might use, some come hither communication, and they have lots of different ways of communicating in a species specific way. So it could be facial rubbing to create that lovely yours.
Your mine, or this is mine, not yours. Kind of beautiful facial rubbing or aloe rubbing aloe grooming. All very beautiful urine spraying to leave scent marks.
And then we can also have visual signals which are usually instinctive displays of emotional state. And we might have sound so we might have vocal sounds like strained intensity loud sounds which might be designed to repel threat versus the kind of pleasant chirp or chirp or, purr, which is designed to, create contented, come hither interactions hiss, which is very often defensive and related to anxiety. And we have, you know, our instinctive communication, but also our deliberate communication, which is very often aimed at humans.
And cats have amazingly developed a vocabulary with humans, which is very human and relationship specific, where they might order us around to obey the cat. So we have to stick to that And so they're using their senses all the time for perception of what's going on around them, perception of what other beings are doing and saying and then responding to that through what they've got. So really all quite incredible, of course, because cats are incredible.
So cats in general with their communication, are much more subtle. So we tend to think of them as not being very communicative. But they really are.
But often it's not on our radar as humans. It's much more subtle so often these instinctive, communications of inner emotions or these distance communications, are very often missed by us as humans. And so we think of them as you know, same same face, different emotional state.
But that's not the case at all. They're generally very subtle because of who they are and how they've evolved. But they then very quickly switch to not subtle when they have lost control, control of a situation or their environment.
Or they're trying to protect themselves or something that's important to them and because they are designed to distance, communicate and they are solitary. It's sort of subtle, subtle, subtle until it's not subtle, and then it's really quite dramatic. And that's when we're like Oh my God, where did that come from?
It was there all along. We just have to get better at reading that subtle stuff. And then we see you know, the the sort of loud, distressing and distressed behaviours.
And these are the things that we often see in the veterinary clinic, which look as though they've come from nowhere. But actually it may be that the cat was inhibiting and using very subtle pieces of information which didn't get seen or learning has a heard. And the cats learn to kind of drop the small talk if you like, and move straight to the higher level behaviours, of communication, which achieve the outcome that they're trying to do.
And all communication is going to be individual and depend on their temperament, their learning history, their emotional state and their agency at that time, and and how they're feeling health wise and mentally. So we want to really remember that the environment relates to the the communication and behaviour, so we must not label animals as angry, grouchy, stubborn, whatever. Let's move away from all of that.
It's all about context and environment. It does not describe a cat. It does not describe a behaviour to label it.
And so what we want to think about is trying to make the environment and the context work for that individual cat to keep them in the right and keep them feeling OK. And lastly. And I know it seems a bit odd to put the beginning of life at the end of the presentation, but it kind of didn't really fit anywhere else.
But I think it's important that we touch on it. The feline developmental stages. You know how our kittens develop and transition through to adult cats and how as pet cats, we really need to consider this so CNS central nervous system development, genetically determines our cognitive, emotional and physical normality and functionality of an individual cat.
And that all happens. Prenatally so early or prenatal development and experience is absolutely crucial, and learning is actually happening from the moment of conception. So we really need to be aware of this when we're thinking about breeding for pet cats and how we're raising pet cats.
So when we think about the foetal period. That's conception to parturition. And what can be going on there is if Mum is experiencing any sort of physical or emotional or mental stress or distress, we can get perinatal stress, which can impact the kittens.
It can decrease their emotional capacity. It can predispose to emotional reactivity. It can mean that we have kittens who are much more, sort of have more of a propensity for distress.
So we really need to think about Mum when she's pregnant, if possible, because that is going to influence the learning of those kittens forever. Then the neonatal period is that birth to 10 days. Peace when really we want to be leaving mum alone to deal with things.
Kittens are gonna have closed eyes, closed ears, and they're gonna be very, very dependent on mum to feed and keep warm. Then we've got our so called transitional period, which is 10 to 21 days, which overlaps with our socialisation period. And this is a time for rapid physical development.
Where the eyes are opening, the ears are opening. The kittens are learning to walk and to be able to move around all the better to learn with and to be able to do socialisation and habituation to the world around you and that you live in. And so 2 to 7 or up to eight weeks is a really, really important time for socialisation and habituation with kittens.
It's the so called sensitive period and NB. This is over by the time kittens are adopted. So there's an enormous responsibility on the breeder or the rescue organisation who are raising these kittens because solitary survivalists, that's all over and done with really, really quickly, unlike dogs who have a very long socialisation period because they're designed to live with humans and they're very social.
So it's all over and done with before these kittens are ever adopted. So we want to be really aware of what we're doing and how we're raising them and and doing so in a way that is going to help raise really lovely, happy, easygoing, glass, half full pet cats. And, there's lots going on in the socialisation period.
So there's conspecific socialisation in the first part of it, that cat to cat social play. Then they're weaned, which is a little bit stressful, and they've got to learn to cope with frustration. And then we've got habituation, which is learning about the physical environment around you, which is interrelated with that social environment, of course.
And then they're developing adult like responses to threat by 6 to 8 weeks, which is really quite extraordinary. So there's so much accelerated learning, and their brains are so plastic at this time. And then we get the juvenile period, which is 2 to 4 or 10 months, depending on the the size of the cat and the breed of the cat.
And this is a time of rapid physical growth excitability activity. This is a high risk time for rehoming because they're transitioning from super cute kittens that anything can be put up with to slightly difficult, pains in the bum, and then it sort of goes through into adolescence, and that's our sexual maturity time. So during this time, they develop fluent hunting skills.
They're trying things out. They're growing confidence. They're growing their physical and, sort of social skills.
They're decreasing social play. They're increasing independent, hunting type behaviours, and they become less tolerant of novelty and change, whereas in those first couple of months anything really goes as long as we're not causing distress and and again, that's really important. And then we get increasing independence as they go through into adulthood, and we have social maturity at kind of 2 to 4 years.
I think I said 18 months to three years earlier on 2 to 4 years in cats. Apologies. And the males would disperse then at this time.
And then they're considered adults until they're about 11 years old when they become seniors. OK, so let's bring it all together. What does all of this mean for our pet cats?
Well, we've kind of touched on some bits as we've gone along. But I hope that you will understand that the the key message is that normal cat behaviour is multifactorial. It's very, very individual.
And it's based on multiple pieces of cat specific stuff, individual specific stuff, and that brings us the cat in front of us. And that will depend on their learning history, their experiences in life, their physical and emotional and mental health. So that's all really important to consider.
And cats, Fundamentally, we want to remember are very territory bonded. So we want to make sure that they feel safe and secure in their territory. That they have as much choice and control and that feeling of agency as possible.
Think of all those hectares that the wild cats would be wondering if they could, and facilitate that, even if it means we get very creative with three dimensional space. If we don't have a lot of, space in the home, we want to make sure that they have ample resources. In my ideal world, every cat would have 2 to 3 of everything per cat.
But in real life, two of everything per cat is ideal. And I know we have this old adage of, however many cats plus one, I guess, you know, the more the more is more, the more the better. And we want to make sure that when we're thinking about resources, we're thinking about food, water, litter, sleeping places, hiding places, perching places, scratching places, all separated from each other by ideally a minimum of, you know, a couple of metres.
So we want not just to have enough but to have ample so that there are choices, and that gives again that feeling of agency. And we want, we think, to be placed in a cat centric way. So away from busy places or threatening areas.
You know, so not placing a water bowl by a patio door or not placing the food on top of a a whirling washing machine or feeding in a busy room. Not having the litter tray in the hallway by the front door. You know all of these things.
We want to think cat and be really cat centric about making sure that our cats feel safe and able to immediately and freely access their resources. And that means without having any physical barriers, of course, but also emotional or psychological barriers. So just because we think that they can freely walk through the kitchen where the new puppy has got its crate and is based to get out of the cat flap, the cat may not feel able to do so, so we want to think about those potential emotional barriers as well.
We also want to think about those multi Catt households, making sure that there is not just plenty for everyone but plenty of space for everyone. Ample access to hide, many exits to the home and entrances to the home, and consistent and predictable indoor outdoor access if that's going to be provided, similarly, if there are other animals in the home, cats can get on very well with other species. But we want to make sure that everybody is provided for and that each can have their own space and time.
I know I have a very bonded cat and dog, but I know that the dog very much appreciates some time away from the cat sometimes, whereas the cat would snuggle with the dog all the time, and I have to find ways to facilitate that so that they can be together, apart sometimes and give the dog a break. So again, we want to think about if they're allowed to have outdoor access, and I think you know, there is no such thing as an indoor cat. Cats are not, that way inclined from a natural perspective.
So if we're going to think about providing for their needs, we might want to consider outdoor access and then think about physical safety, of course, and how we provide that, but also a feeling of safety. If there are lots of other cats around in the area, or if you know if it's a place that is very busy or noisy, how are we going to make those cat friendly gardens or cat friendly, enter entrance or exit points around the home so that they have the opportunity to see but not be seen to navigate without having to be in a wide open space and to feel safe when they're out there? And hopefully that will help to keep them physically safe as well?
Remembering you know, cat population densities can be really tricky. So being aware of that and seeing what we can do to create space, which works for all the cats, including your cat, microchip cat feeders, cat flaps, of course, you know the last thing we want is bullying or intrusion, because that's gonna cause an enormous amount of distress and then also thinking about the the predatory nature of cats and finding ways for them to hunt. So that could be through puzzle feeders, rotating them, maintaining novelty, but also lots of, human interactive play and opportunities for self directed play as well and then thinking about setting up the environment as we are, beautifully instructed by international cat care.
And, they have created this gorgeous graphic which talks about maintaining a safe place somewhere to hide. But the cat can rest, making, making sure they have free and immediate access to all of their wanted and needed resources. Thinking about hunting behaviours and outlets for normal natural behaviour in play, consistent and predictable human animal interactions to reduce distress and thinking about their senses, particularly their sense of smell to make sure that, that we're offering them the best possible life that we can in our care.
And there's loads more resources on the ICAC care website and ISFM website and full disclosure. I work very closely with them and I'm very proud to do so. But there's lots of fantastic information on there, So in conclusion, our pet cats are both concurrently simple and complex.
There are some fundamental cat things that we need to understand, but the individuality of each cat makes it potentially, intricately and infinitely complex in who they are and how we care for them and what we do for them. So they have unique sociality, territoriality and predatory nature, which gives them their cats if you like. And then we understand their wild roots where they've come from their selective social, ability, if you like the fact that they like consistency, predictability, and that control and agency is so important, so they may be distressed by change.
The fact that there are many different lifestyles of cats are domestic felis catus. So, yes, we may have this snuggly little pet cat that sleeps on our pillow and curls up with us and purrs and gravitates towards humans. Or we may have the feral who actively avoids humans, lives in a non domesticated environment, or street cats who again generally are living on their wits and don't really need humans in their lives, or the inbetweeners so coined by international cat care who needs human support but isn't really going to be a pet cat.
So how, you know, again, this is hugely part of their genetics, their heredity, their learning history, their individuality. And so I think the really important message is that within the context of their cats. Every single cat is an individual, and their care needs will be tailored to that individual and what they've learned, how they feel their physical and mental health, and and who they are and how they've got to where they've got there.
So knowing and understanding all of this helps us to care for cats better and ensure that they have the best possible lives within our care. So I hope you found this useful. I hope this has been informative and that it helps to inform and guide your conversations with clients and your interactions with cats and, that it has given you new insights.
And I know we all know that cats are special and we love them, and I'm always endlessly fascinated to learn more about them. So I hope this has been useful for you as well. Thank you so much for being with us for this webinar.
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So take care and thank you very much