Stroking could stress out your cat

Stroking could stress out your cat

Oct. 7, 2013 — A new study by an international team of animal behaviour specialists suggests that cats who reluctantly allow their owners to stroke them could be more stressed out than kitties who carefully avoid being petted.

---

Share This:

The surprise conclusion arose in a study conducted by researchers from the University of Lincoln, UK, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and University of Veterinary Medicine, Austria, which aimed to better understand how cats cope with living alongside humans and other felines in a single household.

Although many people consider cats to be solitary creatures, the collaborative research, published in the Journal Physiology and Behavior and presented to an international audience in Portugal in September 2013, revealed that cats can live happily together in groups, and that the number of cats is not necessarily a problem.

Sponsored by Ceva Animal Health, the scientists examined cats living alone, in pairs and in groups of three or four in the home, assessing levels of stress hormones on four occasions.

Although the number of cats in the home did not predict background stress levels, the researchers found that younger cats (less than two years old) living on their own were more stressed than younger ones living in the larger groups.

Evidence was also found to suggest that the owner's urge to pet their cat may be a stressful experience.

Professor Daniel Mills, Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine at the University of Lincoln, said: "We chose stable households to look into this question and were quite surprised by the results. Despite typically living on their own in the wild, we have known for some time that cats come together when resources like food are concentrated in a single area, for example when people feed strays. However, it might be that they do this out of need and it is still stressful for them, because they are not a naturally social species.

"Many people keep groups of cats in their home and although they might seem happy together, some people have argued that because this is an unnatural set up, it is not good for their welfare. Our research shows this is not necessarily the case. It seems even if they are not best friends, cats may be able to organise themselves to avoid each other without getting stressed. Also, and I think very intriguingly, our data suggests that cats who tolerate, rather than enjoy or dislike being petted, seem to be the most stressed."

Professor Mills explains that those cats that dislike being petted, can probably avoid this interaction if they live with another cat which enjoys or tolerates it, and so do not get stressed.

He added: "It seems that those cats on whom the owner imposes him or herself are the ones we need to be most concerned about. The results also reinforce the importance of ensuring that you give all individuals control over their environment, so if you have several cats you should give them the choice of sharing or having their own special areas to eat, drink and go to the toilet."

Welcome to SUV System Ltd!

SUV System Ltd is ISO 90012008 Certified electronics distributor with 10 years of experiences.

We have built up long term business relationship with about many companies which are stockers and authorized agents. we have a steady and reliable supply to meet customer's demands to the greatest extent .Confidently, we are able to lower your cost and support your business with our years of professional service.

SUV System Ltd is Electronic Components Distributor Supplies,Find Quality Electronic Components Supplies Products IC(Integrated Circuits),Connectors,Capacitor,Resistors,Diodes,Transistors,LED at Suvsystem.com. Sourcing Other Energy, Environment, Excess Inventory Products from Manufacturers and Suppliers at Suvsystem.com

Electronic Components distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com

Connectors Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Connectors-1.html

IC Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/IC(Integrated-Circuits)-1.html

LED Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/LED-1.html

Capacitor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Capacitor-1.html

Transistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Transistors-1.html

Resistor Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Resistors-1.html

Diode Distributor:http://www.suvsystem.com/l/Diodes-1.html

SUV System Ltd insists on the managing faith ofsincereness,speciality,foresight, win-win,so we build up stable-relationship customers located all over the world, including the States, Europe, Argentina, UAE, Malaysia, Australia,and India etc

we are focus on the following fields,and hope we can help you.

MAXIM IC Switching Diodes ON Transistors Resistor Arrays Diodes Connectors ALTERA IC ROHM Resistors INTERSIL IC ON Diodes AVX Resistors INFLNEON Diodes components IR Diodes Cypress IC Switches Kingbrigt LED ELPIDA IC Rectifier Diodes IR transistor IDT IC NS IC Infineon Technologies Transistors About US SANYO IC TDK IC Bipolar Transistors Dialight LED Xilinx IC LINEAR IC chip Filter saws High Precision Resistors NXP Transistors PANASONIC Civil IC Resistor Networks Freescale Semiconductor NEC Transistors IC(Integrated Circuits) PANASONIC Resistors
http://www.suvsystem.com/a/6416.aspx