Cat Ownership Perception and Caretaking Explored in an Internet Survey of People Associated with Cats

Sarah Zito, Dianne Vankan, Pauleen Bennett, Mandy Paterson and Clive J C Phillips

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: People who feed cats that they do not perceive they own (sometimes called semi-owners) are thought to make a considerable contribution to unwanted cat numbers because the cats they support are generally not sterilized. Understanding people’s perception of cat ownership and the psychology underlying cat semi-ownership could inform approaches to mitigate the negative effects of cat semi-ownership. The primary aims of this study were to investigate cat ownership perception and to examine its association with human-cat interactions and caretaking behaviours. A secondary aim was to evaluate a definition of cat semi-ownership (including an association time of ≥1 month and frequent feeding), revised from a previous definition proposed in the literature to distinguish cat semi-ownership from casual interactions with unowned cats. Cat owners and semi-owners displayed similar types of interactions and caretaking behaviours. Nevertheless, caretaking behaviours were more commonly displayed towards owned cats than semi-owned cats, and semi-owned cats were more likely to have produced kittens (p

Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0133293

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133293

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