Behavioural responses to separation from human companion in the domestic cat: A survey-based study
Date
Editor(s)
Advisor
Supervisor
Co-Advisor
Co-Supervisor
Instructor
BUIR Usage Stats
views
downloads
Citation Stats
Attention Stats
Series
Abstract
The domestic cat is known to react to social separation, though the conceptual relationship between separationrelated behaviours outside of a clinical context has not been described in detail. We did an online survey on participants who had cats in their households (Nparticipants=114; Ncats=133) and asked them to evaluate the frequency of 12 behavioural elements associated with social separation from human companions on a 5- point Likert Scale. We performed two dimensionality reduction techniques (component and factor analyses) to assess whether the specified behaviours related to social separation belonged to the same axis. We found four distinct dimensions instead of one: (a) reactivity towards companion departure cues, (b) protest behaviour towards inaccessibility, (c) unusual elimination behaviour, and (d) negative responses following social separation. Our findings suggest a manifestation of different motivational states rather than a single, separation-related construct. Future studies would benefit from a careful evaluation of the separation-related behaviours in a multi-measure context to improve the accuracy of ethological classifications.