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Even Shy Shelter Cats Can Learn Tricks

Researchers show that even old or shy cats can learn new tricks like high five or sit.

Scientists clicker trained cats to do tricks, like this kitten doing a high five

If you think training cats is all the rage lately, you might be right. Recently I wrote about a study that found the best way to train cats was with food (rather than click-then-food or just click). Now another study, by Dr. Lori Kogan (Colorado State University) et al, investigates training shelter cats to do four different behaviours.

Not only did most of the cats learn the tricks, but it shows this is possible even in a shelter setting which is inevitably stressful for the cats.

100 shelter cats were taught to nose-target either a chopstick or the trainer’s finger, to spin, to sit, and to high-five (touch the trainer’s hand with one of their front paws). The trainers took the traditional clicker training approach, in which the click is a bridge that marks the behaviour and predicts a food reward.

Fifteen 5-minute training sessions took place over a 2 week period, at the end of which the cats were assessed to see how well they performed the behaviour on cue:

79% of cats could nose-touch the target
60% could spin
31% could do a high-five
27% could sit on cue.

This was significantly more than could do those behaviours prior to the training sessions. And when you include the cats who had learned to ‘almost’ do the behaviour – for example, almost sat but did not quite have the tailbone on the floor – you realize just how well the cats did. Considering the training was time-limited and took place in a stressful environment, some of the cats probably just needed a little more time.

Even old and shy cats can learn tricks, like this old ginger-and-white cat sitting

Photo: Juli Hansen; top, Sue McDonald. Both Shutterstock.

I asked Cheryl Kolus DVM, one of the authors of the study, what she would like shelter staff to know about the findings. She told me,

“I think the most important thing for shelter staff is that they can now reference the scientific literature that proves shelter cats can be clicker trained if they need to get buy-in from management about starting a clicker training program.

“A couple other important things to note is that even if a cat appears fearful initially, many are still trainable, and that the social interaction can really help a cat adjust positively to the shelter environment.”

There are some really interesting findings to do with food motivation and shyness too. The cats that were rated as more highly food motivated at the start of the session did better than those who were not at the two behaviours of high-five and nose-touching the target. Cats who were rated as shy prior to the training did just as well at training as those that were not. And the age and sex of the cat did not make a difference either.

This shows that any cat (even those that are shy or older) can take part in a training programme.

The cats had two training sessions a day using a standardized plan, and one trainer took the morning shift while another trainer did the afternoons. For the duration of the study, the cats were housed in a separate unit within the shelter at which they were based. Cats were trained in their cage or in a small or larger room, depending how comfortable they were with the situation and what else was happening in the unit at the time (e.g. the presence of volunteers spending time with the cats).

Food motivation was assessed prior to the training by offering each cat a lid with chicken baby food on and a lid with canned tuna. This was also used as a preference test as whichever food the cat went to first was then used as their reward during training. After the scientists had made some choices for cats who seemed unsure, 62% of the cats got canned tuna and 38% got chicken baby food.

Some cats were not very interested in these foods, and they were offered a variety of different foods including cat treats during the training sessions, until the trainers found one the cat liked. A few cats seemed uninterested in the food but very keen on petting and so got petting as a reward instead.

You can see the second author, Cheryl Kolus, demonstrating how to teach a cat to touch a target in this video.

Other research has found that training sessions for shelter cats are linked to more contented cats with better physical health, as assessed by behavioural signs such as normal grooming and by levels of Immunoglobulin A in stool samples.

The authors of this study suggest that clicker training could be a useful enrichment program for shelter cats. The results show that any cat can be trained, and age or shyness should not be considered exclusion criteria for training sessions. The researchers also showed flexibility in training the cats where they felt comfortable (in their cage if necessary). They say training sessions may help cats cope with the stressful environment of a shelter – and they may also help make potential adopters more interested in the cats.

They also point out that positive interactions with humans may help simply by encouraging the cats to come to the front of the cage or out into the room, where they are more visible to potential adopters.

Although studies that trained shelter dogs have not necessarily resulted in increased adoptions (see here and here), it may be different for cats, since it is quite unusual for a cat to have a party trick. It could make for some great “adopt-me” videos. I look forward to seeing future research on this!

The paper is open access and you can find it via the link below.

If you want to know more about training cats, you might enjoy my interview with Dr. Sarah Ellis about her book (with John Bradshaw), The Trainable Cat: A Practical Guide to Making Life Happier for You and Your Cat. And Cheryl Kolus DVM has some helpful resources including videos (such as the one above) on her website.

Reference
Kogan, L., Kolus, C., & Schoenfeld-Tacher, R. (2017). Assessment of Clicker Training for Shelter Cats. Animals, 7(10), 73. doi:10.3390/ani7100073

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body language dogs guest post research stress

Do Dogs Use Body Language to Calm Us Down?

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Are lip licking and looking away signals of discomfort and expressions of peace in the domestic dog?

Guest post by Georgina (Gina) Bishopp (Hartpury College, UK)

Do dogs use body language to calm us down? What it means when a dog licks its lips (like this one) and looks away

Photo: StudioCAXAP

A study by Dr. Angelika Firnkes (Ludwig Maximilians University Munich) et al., 2017 has found that the domestic dog uses appeasement gestures both when feeling threatened and during greetings with humans. For the first time it has now been shown that dogs will use at least two of these signals, the lip lick and look away, to appease their human social companions. Turid Rugaas (2005) had previously described a set of behaviours in dogs, including the lip lick and looking away, through years of working as a behavioural consultant, that she described as ‘Calming Signals’. Rugaas (2005) explained that the dogs would use these ‘Calming Signals’ when feeling uncomfortable and attempting to prevent aggressive responses from their conspecifics and humans. For the first time scientific research has supported this theory in relation to dog-human communication as described by Rugaas.

Many of these behaviours can also be described as appeasement gestures and have been shown to occur during close range dog to dog interactions, (Mariti et al., 2014), almost exclusively when dogs are interacting, (Gazzano et al., 2010). Furthermore, after an aggressive interaction the receiver of the aggression was more likely to show one of these ‘Calming Signals’ and when this occurred aggressive displays from the receiver decreased, (Mariti et al., 2014; Gazzano et al., 2010).

116 dogs over the age of 13 months were accompanied with their owners to perform a standardized behavioural test, (Firnkes et al., 2017). This sample size is good compared to a lot of dog behaviour research where samples tend to be a lot smaller. The human testing the dogs was unfamiliar and subjected the dogs and owners to various stimuli.

The situations that the dogs experienced were either environmental (such as passing a jogger), involved contact (i.e. person walking directly towards dog), or were threatening (i.e. threatening stare at the dog). It is worth noting that the contexts described as threatening were kept safe by using leads and muzzles, and all of the stimuli were very realistic and likely to be experienced by many dogs during their lives (such as a person kicking away a football).

Looking away occurred significantly more in socially direct situations, such as the ‘friendly salutation’ or ‘threatening stare’ stimuli, suggesting that this behaviour is used as a social signal. Lip licking also occurred in a similar way, however did not occur as often as was expected during the ‘threatening screaming’ and ‘physical threat’ [the test human pretended to strike out at the dog] situations. Both did however occur more frequently during friendly interactions after an initial threatening situation, again supporting the theory that these behaviours are used to signal peace and conflict avoidance.

The theory laid out by the authors of this paper for the lack of lip licking and looking away during the very threatening situations is that it is possible that by this point the dogs believed that appeasement was no longer appropriate. Instead they showed clearly submissive behaviour such as the flattened ears, a drawn-in tail and bent joints. This study highlights room for future research to explore the possibility that these behaviours are not intended as signals but are in fact physiological stress responses to the threatening stimuli. This is due to lip licking also occurring during stress responses in dogs to human threat in previous studies.

In this way, I think when a dog looks away or licks its lips they are not signalling to you that they want you to completely back away but are looking for a response that indicates that you too are not looking to aggress. In this way the better human response may be to reduce potential threat through looking away themselves and lowering to the ground, so as not to arch over the dog. In this way the assumption is not being made that dogs showing these signals are overtly stressed by the stimuli or do not want to engage with the stimuli, however that these dogs want to interact with the stimuli in the most peaceful way possible.

Either way, these behaviours are clearly important elements of healthy dog communication with both conspecifics and human caretakers and should not be ignored by those interacting with these animals.

Have you ever experienced lip licking or looking away in your dog? How do you interpret this behaviour?

About the author:

My name is Georgina (Gina) Bishopp and I am a 23-year-old MRes Animal Behaviour and Welfare student at the University of West England, Hartpury College campus. Since graduating from my first degree (BSc Animal Science with Care and Management) I have worked for the Blue Cross and am now at the RSPCA, primarily working with dogs and cats. I own a horse and have ridden since a child, experiencing every different kind of horse training and management as I have tried to understand which method is best for the horse. Now I use a blend of tradition and new age techniques, and only those that are supported by current scientific understanding of horses themselves or other mammals (including the dog). My academic focus has primarily been with companion animals, primarily dogs, and equines, however my interests are very broad and extend to wildlife and zoo animals welfare as well.

Other posts by Georgina Bishopp: The importance of science in horse training.

References
Gazzano, A.; Mariti, C.; Papi, F.; Falaschi, C; Forti, S. (2010). Are domestic dogs able to calm conspecifics by using visual communication? Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 5 (1).
Firnkes, A., Bartels, A., Bidoli, E., Erhard, M., (2017). Appeasement signals used by dogs during dog-human communication. Journal of Veterinary Behaviour: Clinical Applications and Research.
Mariti, C.; Falaschi, C.; Zilocchi, M.; Carlone, B.; Gazzano, A. (2014). Analysis of calming signals in domestic dogs: Are they signals and are they calming? Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 9(6).
Rugaas T. (2005) On Talking Terms With Dogs Calming Signals. Legacy by Mail, Inc. USA.

Companion Animal Psychology is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

cat training cats research science

The Best Way to Train Cats is With Food

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Using food alone is the quickest way to train cats to touch a target, according to this pilot study.

How to train cats, like this beautiful white cat with blue eyes

Photo: Esin Deniz (Shutterstock)

You can train cats to go up to a target and touch it with their nose. This in itself will be news to many people, but researchers at Massey University have investigated the best way to train cats to do this. It involves food.

There’s a lot of interest in training cats at the moment, not necessarily to perform obedience behaviours like sit and stay, but to help them in their daily lives. You can teach your cat to like going in their cat carrier so trips to the vet don’t have to begin with you getting scratched-up arms. And you can use positive reinforcement to help teach your cat where they are allowed to scratch (along with provision of the right scratching post, of course).

Erin Willson et al picked the behaviour of touching a red wand target with the nose, and set about training 9 cats to do this. They divided them into three groups: one that was rewarded with food alone, one that used a bridging stimulus (a beep followed by the food reward), and one that used a secondary reinforcer only (a beep – previously associated with food – but no food).

The first two of these conditions will be familiar to dog trainers who use positive reinforcement, since they equate to the use of food only or to click-plus-treat. The last condition may have some of you thinking back to an interesting talk by Simon Gadbois at SPARCS about the clicker and the emotions of seeking vs liking (you can read a nice summary and discussion on Patricia McConnell’s blog).

The scientists concluded that both food alone and the bridging stimulus (beep plus food) worked, but that food alone was faster. The secondary reinforcer only (beep but no food) did not work. In fact cats in this group began scratching and biting the experimenter.

This is only a small study so there weren’t really enough cats to draw firm conclusions about training methods. Nonetheless the results are very interesting, and it is really nice to see cat training getting the attention of researchers.

The study used a Treat & Train, which is an automatic food dispenser. The red wand target comes with the machine.

12 cats from the university’s feline unit took part in the study. They were aged 2 to 12 years.

Use food to train cats, like this calico cat sitting pretty for a treat

Photo: Kristi Blokhin (Shutterstock)

3 of them took part in what is called an extinction procedure. First they were taught that the beep from the Treat and Train machine meant food was about to arrive. The next day they heard the beeps without any food arriving, to see how long it would take for their response to the beep to extinguish (in other words, until they stopped approaching for food). The median response was 11 trials. This was important information for one of the conditions in the experiment.

9 cats were trained to nose-touch the target using a standardized plan. This was a shaping procedure, so cats were initially rewarded for just looking at the target, then for getting progressively closer until eventually they were expected to touch it with their nose.

The cats were divided into three groups. A beep is meaningless to a cat, so two of the groups (the bridge group and the secondary reinforcer group) were taught to associate the beep from the machine with food. Food is a primary reinforcer because it naturally has value to cats.

The food-only group got to hang out with the machine without any beeping, so that time with the machine would not be a factor.

During the training sessions, the food-only group was rewarded with food from the Treat and Train whenever they performed the correct behaviour. The machine was set up not to beep.

For the bridge group, the beep of the machine was used as a bridge, something that marks the right behaviour and fills the time until the arrival of food. In this condition, the beep is always followed by food. When the cat performed the correct behaviour, the machine beeped, and then food arrived.

For the last group, the beep was used as a secondary reinforcer. In other words, when cats performed the right behaviour, they heard the beep but did not get food. These cats were given some additional beep-food pairings to maintain this association and prevent its extinction (that’s why the first part of the experiment was important).

All of the cats in the food-only group and the bridging stimulus group (beep plus food) learned the behaviour. The group reinforced with food-only was faster at learning the task, but took the same amount of trials as the bridge group.

None of the cats in the secondary reinforcer (beep-only) group learned it. As mentioned above, the cats in this group began to scratch and bite the experimenter. Perhaps they were frustrated that they could not figure out how to get the food. (This reminds me of the study of the Eureka effect in dogs, where dogs became reluctant to enter the experimental area when they could not make the reward happen).

So if you are planning to train a cat, you should use food. (Incidentally, food is also important when training dogs).

The experimenters used a piece of Hill’s kibble as the reward. If you’re training a cat at home, you might find other kinds of food more motivating; see my interview with Sarah Ellis on The Trainable Cat for some ideas.

The results of this study are broadly in line with Chiandetti et al’s (2016) dog training study, which found no difference between use of food only, clicker-plus-food, or verbal-marker-plus food (that study did not test a secondary-reinforcer-only option).

The cats were assigned to groups in the order they happened to participate, and it turned out three older cats were assigned to the secondary-reinforcer-only group. We don’t know if age and gender of the cats would make any difference to trainability and this would be another topic for future research.

The authors conclude,

“the use of a primary reinforcer, alone, or a bridging stimulus (followed by a primary reinforcer) appeared to be efficacious for training cats to perform a novel task. However, the primary reinforcer, alone, may be a more time efficient method. The use of a secondary reinforcer, alone, may not be efficacious.”

Incidentally, learning to touch a target with the nose may seem like a trick, but it has its uses. Some people train their dogs to touch a target (such as their hand) and hold in place. It’s called a stationing behaviour because it keeps the dog still at a station, and can be useful during veterinary examinations.

This is a fascinating study and I hope to see lots more research on cat training in the future.

Have you ever tried to train a cat? If so, how did it go?

Laboratory Beagles Do Well in New Homes

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Researchers follow lab beagles as they go to live with a family – and find they adjust very well.

Sleeping beagle. Lab beagles can be successfully rehomed

Photo: Sigma_S (Shutterstock)

Laboratory beagles are used for a variety of experiments. A new study by Dorothea Döring (LMU Munich) et al investigates how they behave in normal life once they are rehomed with a family.

As they explain at the start of the paper, “As rehoming practice in Germany shows that appropriate new owners can be found and that the dogs seem to adapt easily, no sound reason exists to euthanize surplus or post-experimental laboratory dogs unless they would experience pain and suffering if kept alive. From a moral standpoint, humans have an ethical obligation to provide healthy animals with appropriate living conditions.”

Although some laboratory beagles are re-homed directly to individuals, most are rehomed via animal welfare organizations that specialize in placing them. The researchers studied 145 beagles that were rehomed by two such organizations from a pharmaceutical company.

The results show the new owners were very happy with their dogs: 92% said they would adopt a laboratory beagle again. Only 9 (out of 145 dogs) were returned to the animal welfare group.

Life for beagles at the lab had involved being kept in an indoor kennel with daily access to an outside run. They had been provided with treats, a wooden bite stick and a sleeping box, and most had been housed on their own. The beagles were used to general veterinary procedures like examinations and blood draws.

All of the dogs were given a behavioural test at the lab facility. After six weeks in their new home, the same test was given to all the dogs that were adopted within a 200km radius (74 of the dogs). They were also observed in interactions with the owner (e.g. inviting the dog to play, taking the dog for a walk on leash). The new owners also took part in a telephone interview 1 week and 12 weeks after the adoption.

The behaviour test included a range of things like leaving the dog alone for 90s, offering food from a flat hand, holding the muzzle closed for 10 seconds, putting a collar and leash on, using a stethoscope to check the dog’s heart rate, and so on. In the second test scenario and observations, a few dogs were not given certain parts of the test for welfare reasons (e.g. if the owner said the vacuum cleaner sent them into a panic, they were not shown a vacuum cleaner).

The initial telephone interviews were good, and by 12 weeks the dogs were showing even more good behaviours. By 12 weeks post-adoption, 94% of the dogs enjoyed being petted by the owner, and 93% were said to tolerate being groomed. 77% were friendly towards children in the family, and only 11% were cautious (none were aggressive).

A few behaviours did get worse over this time period: behaviour towards unknown children, to the family cat, and to the veterinarian. The observations of dogs showed most were friendly to a visitor (a researcher) and to a test dog that was walked by during the leash walk. However, a quarter showed a fear response to the visitor. None were aggressive.

Lab beagles adjust well to family life when rehomed. Frequent R+ training is suggested, as this cute beagle shows off a trick

Regular positive reinforcement training sessions are recommended by the authors.
Photo: Otsphoto (Shutterstock)

Most of the correlations between tests were quite low, which is not surprising (for shelter dogs, test results also do not do a good job of predicting behaviour in a new home). There was a moderate correlation between “persistent following” and reports of separation anxiety.

The presence of behaviour problems was only weakly correlated with the likelihood of people saying they would adopt a laboratory beagle again, showing that people are tolerant and patient with their dogs.

There was an interesting effect of the original source of the dogs, as dogs bred in the research facility did better than those who had come from a commercial breeder.

Obedience training and the use of frequent rewards were both linked to better-behaved dogs. This is no surprise because other studies have found reward-based dog training is linked to a more obedient dog.

Attendance at dog training classes, however, was not linked to better behaviour. It may be that the people who went to dog training classes (rather than just training at home) did so because the dog had behaviour problems, and/or because they had less experience of training a dog. This is something that warrants further investigation.

The main behaviour problems were house soiling (found in 39% of 126 dogs) and separation anxiety (reported in 28% of 125 dogs). Some of the dogs were also afraid of sounds such as the vacuum cleaner.

These results are very promising for the rehoming of laboratory beagles, since they show most dogs are friendly, adapt well, and their new owners are happy with them. This ties in with other studies that tell us most people who adopt shelter dogs would do so again. Dogs that were previously used as breeding stock in a commercial breeding establishment can also become loving family pets even though in that case the risk of behaviour and health problems is much higher.

The scientists make some important recommendations, including that beagles can be rehomed at any age as they did well in their new homes regardless of age. They can be rehomed to families with children, although safety rules should always be followed for interactions between children and dogs. Rehoming via animal welfare organizations that specialize in the placement of lab dogs is sensible.

The scientists say research facilities should select breeders whose dogs are friendly, well-socialized and not fearful. They suggest giving advice on house training, separation anxiety, and fear of sounds/objects, as well as contact details for behaviourists in case help is needed.

And another recommendation is to have regular dog training sessions using positive reinforcement.

You can read the full set of recommendations at the end of the article, which is open access (link below).

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Down Dog pin from doggiedrawings

Silver dog brooch from JewelsYouLove

Diamante Scotty Dog brooch by Lelong Designs

Reference
Döring, D., Nick, O., Bauer, A., Küchenhoff, H., & Erhard, M. H. (2017). How do rehomed laboratory beagles behave in everyday situations? Results from an observational test and a survey of new owners. PloS one, 12(7), e0181303.

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cats research science

What Your Cat's Nose Knows

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There’s a lot more to your cat’s nose than you think.

Do you ever pay much attention to that cute little nose your cat has? We’re used to thinking of dogs as being all about smells – but it turns out cats are very much into scent too. A literature review by Kristyn Vitale Shreve and Monique Udell (Oregon State University) explains what we know about the importance of olfaction and chemical detection to cats, from what it means for indoor cats to the possibility of trained scent detection cats.

Vitale Shreve and Udell say,

“Importantly, a better understanding of cat chemical signals has critical applied implications, as scent (and marking) plays an important role in many species-typical cat behaviors, problem behaviors, and can also serve as enrichment if properly understood and applied.”

Ultimately, if cat owners have a better understanding of the role of scent in their cat’s life, they can improve their cat’s welfare.

How cats process chemical signals

You probably already know cats have two different systems that are important organs of olfaction and chemical detection.

First of all, of course, there’s the nose: the two nostrils that allow scents in to the nasal cavity. Then there’s the vomeronasal organ (more easily called the VNO if you prefer). This is in the hard palate in the roof of the mouth. When you see a cat with their mouth open in a grimace, called the Flehmen response, they are utilising their VNO to make sense of chemical signals.

Beyond that, we don’t know as much as you’d think, showing the urgency of more research in this area. For example, we know that a part of the brain called the caudate is used in processing smells, and in many species it is also activated in anticipation of rewards. In dogs, we know that the caudate is activated in response to the smell of a familiar human. We don’t yet know if this occurs in cats or not.

And while we know the vomeronasal organ has three types of detectors, only one of them has ever been investigated.

The VNO detects what are known as pheromones – chemical signals that carry meaning for that and other cats. Cats release different types of pheromones from glands on their bodies, and while the purpose of some is not known, we know a lot more about others and synthetic versions of some are available (you’ve heard of Feliway).

The importance of scent and pheromones to cats

Medical detection cats?

Cats are able to tell the difference between many different scents. Vitale Shreve and Udell say their size, agility, and ability to fit in small spaces means that cats may make excellent scent detection animals. For people who are afraid of dogs, cats might make good medical detection animals. Of course, more research is needed, not just into a cat’s sense of smell but also into the practicalities.

How cats use chemical signals

Cats have scent glands on the head between the eyes and ears, on the side of the forehead, in the cheeks, under the chin, at the corners of the mouth, between the pads on the paws, at the base of the tail, in the ano-genital area, and around a female cat’s nipples. These glands produce pheromones.

Pheromones are used in social communication. As solitary animals, cats can use scent to mark their territory so other cats know to stay away, without them even needing to meet. When cats live in groups, they can maintain a ‘group scent’ that means familiar cats all smell similar. When you see cats rub against each other’s bodies, it is believed they are maintaining this group scent.

Pheromones are also used in sexual activity. When a tomcat rubs his head near a sexually intact female, he leaves F2 pheromone.

In addition to pheromones, cats deposit scent by scratching and with saliva, urine and faeces.

Scratching leaves scent from glands in the cat’s paws, and over time may build up on the scratched object. It may become an “olfactory reference point” for the cat, and so providing appropriate places for cats to scratch and leave their scent is important.

The importance of scent to kittens

Kittens are born with their eyes and ears closed. They use the feeling of warmth, their sense of touch and chemical detection to find their nest. The nest is full of chemical signals – secretions from the mother cat’s glands mark the area, and hair, saliva and urine from the kittens all add to the mix. This nest odour is thought to reduce stress in the kittens, have a calming influence and improve their well-being.

Photo: Rashid Valitov; top, Dziewul (both Shutterstock).

Did you know that within a litter of kittens, by the time they are one or two days old (and until about 32 days) each one has its own preferred nipple on the mother? The scientific term is “teat constancy.” Pheromones are released from glands around the nipples. We don’t know if each nipple has its own characteristic odour, or if saliva from the kitten adds its scent to the nipple.

As the kittens are able to move around more, “teat constancy” subsides and kittens will nurse from other female cats as well as their mother.

Scent in social relationships between cats

Olfaction plays an important part in social relationships between cats. The authors say that in one study, sniffing accounted for almost a third of the behaviours observed. Cats often sniff each other at the start of social interactions.

Male and female cats respond differently to smells from other cats; the Flehmen response and urine spraying are more common in males, whereas female cats pay more attention to skin secretions than to urine. Chemical signals seem to play both a sexual and a social role.

Chemical signals are also used in marking territory and there are several theories about how this works. It may be that marking is used to tell other cats to stay away, but an alternative idea is that it helps the cat feel at home within their own territory. This is another area where more research is needed.

What this means to you as a cat owner

Cat owners should recognize that chemical signals are important to cats, even if we are not always able to detect them ourselves.

Some of these signals help to make cats feel safe and secure – which means that if we get rid of them with too much cleaning, it may make our cats more anxious. The authors suggest the use of cleaning products should be limited near the cat’s rest areas, scratching posts and litterboxes. If we remove their scent from these areas, they may choose different areas for these activities instead, which we may be none too happy about.

You may notice that in places where your cat rubs frequently, the furniture or wall is marked and paint may even be rubbed off. Your cat gains comfort from these areas smelling like him- or her-self, so if you can hold off cleaning or re-painting as long as you can, your cat would prefer it.

Photo: Kristi Blohkin (Shutterstock).

Adding the cat’s own scent to new furniture or new environments may help it to feel calm and relaxed. This may be especially important in rehoming centres, where the cat is faced with a completely new and stressful environment.

The idea of scent as a reference point within the environment may be especially useful for people with blind cats.

Providing scents to cats can be an enrichment activity, especially for indoor cats. Catnip is an obvious example, and while many cat owners are aware of this there are other substances such as silver vine that fewer people have heard of. Sarah Ellis has a lovely idea in her book, The Trainable Cat (co-authored with John Bradshaw) of a sensory box – bringing things from the outside in for the cat to experience. Remember too that cats can get used to things, so rotating scents or bringing in new scents is a good idea.

Cats can be trained to go on leash walks to give them access to the outdoors. Alternately, safe enclosed ‘catios’ can give them outdoor spaces if it is not possible for them to have regular outdoor access. Simply leaving a window safely ajar can let them sniff the breeze.

Scratching is important to cats, and so they need to be provided with suitable scratching posts. When such posts are available, cats will use them – and you can reinforce this behaviour by rewarding them (e.g. with a cat treat) for scratching them.

If your cat is not using the litter box appropriately (peeing outside the box, urine spraying, pooping in the wrong place), then in addition to taking your cat to the vet to check for a medical problem, also consider that stress might be playing a role. Make sure you have enough litter boxes, that they are big enough and located in quiet areas, and take steps to reduce stress in all aspects of your cat’s life. Vitale Shreve and Udell note the unfortunate possibility that if litter box issues are a result of anxiety, the scent from them may make the cat feel more comfortable, and completely getting rid of that scent may cause more anxiety… Since humans are not likely to tolerate this scent, it emphasizes the importance of reducing stress in all other areas.

It’s worth thinking about where a cat’s scent glands are when stroking your cat too. A study by Sarah Ellis et al (2014) found cats prefer to be stroked around the head in the areas where the scent glands are, and suggests it may be a bit like allo-rubbing.

Of course, always give cats a choice of whether or not to interact with you or with particular scents.

Conclusions

It turns out that scent and chemical communication matters a lot to cats, and that cats can differentiate between many different smells. While we need more research on different aspects of how cats produce and utilise chemical signals, we can use what we already know to help make cats feel more comfortable and secure, and even use scent as enrichment.

What Helps Shelter Dogs Get Adopted and Stay in Homes?

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A new literature review looks at how shelters can increase adoptions and reduce animal relinquishment.

A cute mixed breed dog lies down with a ball in its mouth

The review, by Dr. Alexandra Protopopova (Texas Tech University) and Lisa Gunter, looks at the factors that affect adoption rates, the effects of interventions, and how to decrease the numbers of people giving their dogs to shelters (or returning dogs after adoption). The review is important because it will help shelters to know about evidence-based ways to reduce the number of dogs in shelters.

Although some factors vary from one country to another, some things are consistent: people spend very little time looking at a shelter dog before deciding to adopt, and they pay attention to the dog’s size, breed, and colour.

Dogs can arrive at shelters as strays (the most common route in the US), by being surrendered by their owner (about 30% of dogs in shelters in the US), after being seized in an animal cruelty investigation, or by being returned following an adoption that has not worked out.

The review found a dog’s appearance is an important factor in its adoption. People also seem to prefer dogs that were surrendered by their owner rather than strays, and are influenced by breed labels with dogs described as pit-bull types taking longer to be adopted. One study at a Florida shelter found that removing breed labels was successful at improving adoption rates of pit-bull type dogs (adoption rates of other dogs were unchanged).

If people decide to spend time with a dog, then its behaviour becomes more important, with people adopting dogs they describe as showing calmness, friendliness and playfulness. But the decision to adopt a dog or not is typically made after only 8 minutes.

A study by Protopopova et al (2014) found people are more likely to adopt a dog if it plays with them and lies down near them. Following this, Protopopova et al (2016) found adoption rates were increased 2.5 times with an intervention that both encouraged play (using the dog’s favourite toy) and then keeping the dog on a short leash and using treats to lure it into a down position near the potential adopter.

What helps shelter dogs - like this cute mixed-breed - get adopted and stay in homes?

Photo: Tom Feist; top, Emily on Time; both Shutterstock.

Other strategies have looked at reducing the number of dogs relinquished or returned to shelters. Young dogs are more likely to be relinquished, and there are differences between relinquished dogs and those kept, as well as between the people who relinquish dogs and those who don’t. Moving house and difficulties in finding rental homes that take pets, and personal issues, all play a role too, showing how complicated an issue it is.

About 15% of adopted dogs are subsequently returned to the shelter in the US. Again, returned dogs are typically young, and there is a range of reasons including housing, personal issues, and behaviour issues that are typically spotted quite soon after the dog was taken home.

Since so many dogs end up in shelters as strays, microchipping and identification tags would go a long way to being able to return dogs to their owners. Unfortunately, studies of providing education and/or training and behaviour information to people adopting dogs have not always had the positive results you might expect. However, a program that used foster homes (including giving the foster responsibility for finding the dog a new home) had promising results.

The review also looks at the issues with behavioural assessments of shelter dogs, and points out areas where we need to know more (such as the behaviour of people thinking of adopting a dog). Finally, wider community involvement may help too.

Although we know quite a lot about how dogs end up in shelters, a lot more research is needed to help design evidence-based programs to reduce relinquishment and increase adoptions. This paper is a useful summary of what we know so far.

You can follow the researchers on Facebook: Dr. Alexandra Protopopova at the Human-Animal Interaction Lab and Lisa Gunter is part of the Canine Science Collaboratory headed by Dr. Clive Wynne.

Reference
Protopopova, A., & Gunter, L. M. (2017). Adoption and relinquishment interventions at the animal shelter: a review. Animal Welfare, 26(1), 35-48.