Scientists are attempting to resolve considered one of life’s largest issues: a home cat with a foul behavior of tearing up furnishings.
In a brand new examine Wednesday, researchers recognized a number of key elements that seem to foretell cats’ undesirable scratching conduct. These embrace the presence of youngsters within the house, their playtime, and their general stress ranges. Scientists say at the very least a few of these facets may be tweaked to regulate cats’ scratching conduct.
The analysis was performed by veterinary scientists from Turkey, Portugal and France; the venture was additionally funded by French animal well being firm Ceva Santé Animale. The workforce requested greater than 1,200 cat homeowners in France to fill out a web-based survey that included questions on their cats’ house surroundings, every day routines and scratching behaviour.
General, the workforce discovered that some cats are naturally extra susceptible to scratching, corresponding to felines described by their homeowners as “aggressive” or “harmful.” However there are different exterior elements related to undesirable scratches from cats, significantly having kids within the house, taking part in with cats for lengthy intervals of time, and usually being extra lively at evening.
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Describing their findings, the researchers wrote: “It highlights the multifaceted nature of undesirable scratching conduct and underscores the significance of a complete understanding of the person traits of cats and their surroundings to successfully tackle this conduct.” publish Wednesday at Frontiers of Veterinary Science.
Clearly, having younger kids or a grumpy cat just isn’t one thing an proprietor can change on a whim. However the workforce discovered one thing that implies stress, a serious exterior consider cat scratching, might be higher managed. For instance, an excessive amount of play time at one time could over-stimulate a cat. Further stress may clarify why having kids round can be related to cat scratches, though scientists say extra analysis is required to find out this for positive.
Due to this fact, they are saying, discovering methods to scale back stress in cats ought to assist cut back their pointless scratching. This will embrace ensuring your cat has sufficient nooks and crannies the place they’ll chill out with out being disturbed, in addition to excessive locations the place they’ll perch and observe their kingdom. You might also need to area out your sport time into brief bursts of exercise to extra intently mimic pure looking conduct. Wanting on the survey information, the workforce discovered that leaving scratching posts in areas frequented by cats appeared to assist stop them from scratching different, extra treasured items of furnishings.
Lead writer Yasemin Salgirli Demi̇rbas, a veterinary researcher at Ankara College, mentioned within the report: “Our findings may assist caregivers management scratching conduct and redirect it to applicable supplies, which may assist create a greater surroundings for cats and their caregivers. A extra harmonious residing surroundings. assertion The journal’s writer, Frontiers.
Implement these findings to guard your favourite possessions. Simply don’t let your cat catch you studying this—except you’re ready to clarify why their favourite sofa is all of the sudden off-limits.