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The effect of animal shelter sound on cat behaviour and welfare

University of British Columbia

This study assessed how sound in an animal shelter affects cat behaviour. Singly housed cats (n=98) were observed over 5 months. Fear-related and maintenance-related behaviour were recorded for 30-minute periods on weekdays (AM 10:00-10:30, PM 20:00-20:30) or weekends (AM 7:00-7:30, PM 19:00-19:30) daily from admittance for 10 days or until removed. Cats observed both AM and PM on 2 or more weekdays were used for analysis (n=70). Behaviour, plus presence of sound (classified by the source), was recorded using instantaneous and one-zero sampling with 15-second intervals. Each 30-minute observation period was classified as “quiet” or “loud” if the sound was above or below (respectively) the median for all periods at the same time of day. Data were analyzed by non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for differences in behaviour between AM and PM periods. Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to test differences between age groups, source of cats, and Asilomar Accords. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to test differences in fear and maintenance behaviour between males and females. Cats varied widely in the amount of fear and maintenance behaviour they performed. Some spent all their observed time in fear behaviour (especially hiding) and no maintenance behaviour, while others showed no fear behaviour and spent up to 25% of observation intervals in maintenance behaviours. AM periods consistently had much more sound than PM. Cats showed more fear behaviour (p<0.001), and less maintenance behaviour (p<0.020) in AM than PM periods. Males showed less fear (p=0.003) and maintenance (p=0.035) behaviour than females. Cats showed more fear behaviour in loud AM than quiet AM periods (p=0.001) but no comparable difference was seen in maintenance behaviour (p=0.501). Where sessions included a pronounced change in sound level, fear-related behaviour was more common after a transition from quiet to loud (p=0.002, Wilcoxon signed ranks test) and tended to be less common after a transition from loud to quiet (p=0.125). The results show that cats vary greatly in their response to being moved to a shelter and suggest that sound in shelter environments can substantially affect the behaviour of cats. Lowering sound levels in shelters may help improve cat welfare.  

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2020-08-31

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/75779

Applied Animal Biology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/