CAT BEHAVIOUR
DOÇ. DR. YASEMİN SALGIRLI DEMİRBAŞ
Socialisation phase
• Between 2-7 weeks.
• Kittens are self confident during this phase.
• Can maximally benefit from social and physical interactions.
Socialisation
• Socialization with cats and other species is important.
• Positive interactions should be experienced.
• Positive emotional state should be guaranteed.
• Otherwise, sensation would occur.
Fail in socialisation
• Fail in socialization leads to adaptation problems in multicat households.
• It may also lead to behavioural
problems linked to fear, anxiety and frustration.
• Physiological stress directly links to low urinary tract disorder, dermatological problems and immuno deficiencise in cats.
Socialization problems related to natural behaviors of cats
• The most important step is to learn how to interact with humans.
• Physical and social contact, genetical background,
presence of the mother are also important in socialization with humans.
• Humans like to have low frequent interactions with high intensity, whereas cats prefer to have high frequent and low intense interactions.
• Humans like to have physical contact while cats prefer to say «Hi» and moves away.
• Hugging prevetnt cats from using their most preferred strategy: avoidace.
• Some cats do need only a little amount of social interaction.
• Thus, socialization with humans is important in this period.
Habituation
• Cats filter harmless stimuli in the environment in this phase.
• In case of less contact with
different stimuli, they can develop fera-anxiety related problems later.
• Complex envrionments are
improtant but excessive loading should be avioded.
• Kittens need time to explore each stimulus.
Development of temperament
• Learning and genetical background are important.
• Father has a significant genetical impact on temperament of kittens.
• Mother cat and her reaction towards are important when raising the kittens.
• Thus, knowing parents is important.
Social behaviors in cats
• Socialization and knowing cat ethology are important for adapting cats into
multicat household.
• Cats are social creatures, they can
establish social relationship. But they do not neet social relationships to survive.
• They prefer thier relatives in a natural environment.
• They try not to have physical contact with foreigners.
Social behaviors in cats
• Have fundemental need to keep everything under control.
• They show limited cooperation.
• Avodiance is their preferred strategy- they hide or sit on higher places.
• They need seclusion and privacy even they are social..
• Unless, they can be suffered from chronical stress.
Social behaviors in cats
• Females, in particular if they are relatives may show cooperative behaviors.
• They nurse and raise the kittens together.
• Generally, there is one male and his females in a territory and foreigner males are not tolerated.
• Communication is important to maintain social relationships.
• The best indicators of a social group is: Allogrooming and allorubbing.
Pacifying behaviors in cats
• They have a limited repertoire to pacify the encounter.
• They prefer avoidance but in case of high level of arousal serious fights and injuries can be seen.
Hunting in cats
• They learn how to hunt in the age of 5-6 weeks from their mother.
• Hunting is a solitary activity.
• Cats are designed as a perfect hunter.
• They spend 6-8 hours for hunting. They attemp 100-150 hunting sequences and succeed in 10% of them.
• Hunger and hunting are independent needs from each other.
• Hunting is a desire seeking motivation. Thus, appropriate play is important.
