Scientists are working laborious to resolve one in every of life’s biggest issues: a home cat with a nasty behavior of tearing up the furnishings.
In a brand new examine Wednesday, researchers have recognized a number of key elements that seem to foretell undesirable cat scratching. These embody having younger children in the home, the form of playtime they get, and their total stage of stress. A minimum of a few of these elements will be tweaked to maintain your cat’s clawing in examine, the scientists say.
The examine was carried out by veterinary scientists from Turkey, Portugal, and France; it was additionally funded by the French animal well being firm Ceva Santé Animale. The group had over 1,200 cat homeowners in France fill out a web based survey, which included questions on their cat’s residence setting, day by day routine, and scratching behaviors.
General, the group discovered that some cats had been naturally extra vulnerable to scratching, equivalent to felines that had been described as “aggressive” or “disruptive” by their homeowners. However there have been different outdoors elements linked to undesirable cat scratching, notably having children at residence, taking part in with the cat for lengthy intervals of time, and customarily being extra energetic at evening.
“It underscores the multifaceted nature of undesirable scratching habits and emphasizes the significance of comprehensively understanding each the person traits of the cat and its setting to successfully deal with this habits,” the researchers wrote about their findings, printed Wednesday in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Clearly, having younger children or a grouchier cat aren’t issues that homeowners can change on a whim. However some issues recognized by the group level to emphasize as a significant exterior issue for cat scratching that may be higher managed. An excessive amount of playtime without delay, for instance, can develop into overly stimulating for a cat. Added stress might additionally clarify why having children round is linked to cat scratching as properly, although the scientists say extra analysis is required to know for sure.
So discovering methods to scale back your cat’s stress ought to then assist lower down on their undesirable scratching, they are saying. This may embody ensuring your cat has loads of nooks and crannies to chill out in with out being disturbed, in addition to excessive spots from which they’ll perch and observe their kingdom. You may need to additionally area out your playtime into brief bursts of exercise that extra mimic pure searching habits. And from the survey knowledge, the group discovered that leaving out scratching posts in locations that cats go to steadily appeared to assist hold them from clawing different extra treasured furnishings.
“Our findings will help caregivers handle and redirect scratching to acceptable supplies, which might assist foster a extra harmonious residing setting for each cats and their caregivers,” mentioned lead creator Yasemin Salgirli Demi̇rbas, a veterinary researcher at Ankara College, in a assertion from Frontiers, publishers of the journal.
Implementing these findings might defend your favourite possessions. Simply don’t let your cat catch you studying this—until you’re prepared to clarify why their favourite couch is all of a sudden off-limits.
