CATastrophic myths part 2: Common misconceptions about the environmental, nutritional, and genetic management of domestic cats and their welfare implications.

Despite the cat's popularity as a companion species, many owners and practitioners lack high quality information about important aspects of their behavior and management. Myths, anecdotes, and narratives of cats as 'low maintenance, self-sufficient' animals are pervasive, and the degree to which these may underlie complacency about fully meeting cats' needs is unknown. Several studies suggest that cat welfare and the human-cat bond may benefit from improved education about how to optimize the domestic cat's management and husbandry needs in homes and elsewhere.

CATastrophic myths part 1: Common misconceptions about the social behavior of domestic cats and implications for their health, welfare, and management.

Cats are among the most popular pets worldwide, but there are still major gaps in the public's general understanding of their social behaviors and related needs, including for socialization. In addition to these knowledge gaps, people often have negative or ambivalent attitudes about cats, which can directly impact their welfare outcomes. Insufficient attention to the behavioral ecology and development of cat sociality, along with failure to account for their highly variable individual preferences and tolerance for social behaviors can lead them to experience distress that undermines both their welfare and the human-animal bond.

Vasectomy and ovary-sparing spay in dogs: comparison of health and behavior outcomes with gonadectomized and sexually intact dogs.

Objective: To compare health and behavior outcomes for dogs that underwent vasectomy or ovary-sparing spay (hysterectomy) with sexually intact dogs or dogs that had undergone traditional castration or spay.

Sample: 6,018 dog owners responded to a web-based survey between November 3, 2021, and January 7, 2022.

Procedures: Participants were asked demographic questions and to provide information about 1 or more dogs (living or deceased).

Expanding the landscape of opportunity: Professional societies support early-career researchers through community programming and peer coaching.

Weaving the future of the field of comparative psychology is dependent on the career advancement of early-career scientists. Despite concerted efforts to increase diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, scholars from marginalized groups are disproportionately underrepresented in the field-especially at advanced career stages. New approaches to sponsorship, mentoring, and community building are necessary to retain talent from marginalized communities and to create a culture and a system where all individuals can thrive.

Domestic cats (Felis catus) prefer freely available food over food that requires effort.

Contrafreeloading is the willingness of animals to work for food when equivalent food is freely available. This behavior is observed in laboratory, domesticated, and captive animals. However, previous research found that six laboratory cats failed to contrafreeload.

Early maternal separation is not associated with changes in telomere length in domestic kittens ().

Objective: Studies of multiple species have found that adverse early life experiences, including childhood trauma and maternal separation, can result in accelerated telomere shortening. The objective of this study was to determine if premature separation from the mother affected telomere length in domestic kittens (). Subjects were 42 orphaned kittens and 10 mother-reared kittens from local animal rescue groups and shelters.

The effect of premature maternal separation on distress vocalizations and activity in kittens () during a brief nest separation.

It is unknown how premature maternal separation affects the responses of kittens to potentially stressful events. In the United States, thousands of kittens are orphaned each year due to death of the queen, neglect, or accidental separation by humans. Neonatal mammals emit distress calls and increase locomotion when socially isolated, suggesting that being separated from the nest is a stressful event.

Risk factors associated with progressive increases in serum creatinine concentrations in cats with cancer receiving doxorubicin.

Background: Azotemia occurs in cats administered doxorubicin, but risk factors have not been explored.

Objective: To determine incidence of progressive increases in serum creatinine concentration in cats with cancer receiving doxorubicin in single or multiagent chemotherapy protocols and associated risk factors.

Animals: Seventy cats with cancer receiving doxorubicin.

A survey-based assessment of risk factors for cross-sucking behaviors in neonatal kittens, .

Cross-sucking, or non-nutritive sucking on the bodies of littermates, is commonly observed in early-weaned animals. This behavior has been well-documented in production animals, which are often separated from their mothers before weaning. The behavior is less well-understood in other domestic species, such as cats (), that can be orphaned due to neglect, maternal death, or accidental separation.

Feeding Cats for Optimal Mental and Behavioral Well-Being.

In this article, we review cats' feeding behaviors, and discuss ways of feeding cats that promote physical and mental/behavioral health, while providing cats with choices that allow expression of preferences. We address the management of several feeding issues that cat owners may face, such as obesity, pickiness, begging for food, and feeding in multi-cat households. Food puzzles are one way to provide environmental enrichment for cats, and food can be used in multiple ways for behavior modification in the clinical setting, including counterconditioning and differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors.

A survey of feeding practices and use of food puzzles in owners of domestic cats.

Objectives: Food puzzles may provide enrichment to domestic cats. The purpose of our survey was to determine: (1) how respondents fed their cat (type[s] of food, amount and mode of delivery); (2) how many people used food puzzles to provide food for their cats; and (3) owner attitudes about food puzzles.

Methods: We conducted an online survey from January to April of 2018 to ask cat owners (n = 3192) questions related to their cat feeding practices and use of food puzzles.

Chronic Lower Urinary Tract Signs in Cats: Current Understanding of Pathophysiology and Management.

Cats that present with chronic lower urinary tract signs are often diagnosed with feline idiopathic/interstitial cystitis, a disease syndrome that is more than just a bladder disease and can be associated wtih a myriad of other co-morbidities. Further, gaining a better understanding of FIC (including the most accurate descriptive terminology) may help researchers, veterinarians, pet food companies, and clients develop and tailor the best possible approaches to management of these cat's unique health and welfare needs.

Caching for where and what: evidence for a mnemonic strategy in a scatter-hoarder.

Scatter-hoarding animals face the task of maximizing retrieval of their scattered food caches while minimizing loss to pilferers. This demand should select for mnemonics, such as chunking, i.e.

Attributes of conscientiousness throughout the animal kingdom: An empirical and evolutionary overview.

Conscientiousness is a fundamental aspect of human personality, one that is closely linked with various favorable life outcomes. Despite its importance in humans, conscientiousness has received little attention as to how it may have evolved, or whether it provides similar fitness benefits in other animals. To date, research in animal personality has found consistent support for the presence of all major dimensions of human personality in other animals except conscientiousness.

Food puzzles for cats: Feeding for physical and emotional wellbeing.

Practical Relevance: Many pet cats are kept indoors for a variety of reasons (eg, safety, health, avoidance of wildlife predation) in conditions that are perhaps the least natural to them. Indoor housing has been associated with health issues, such as chronic lower urinary tract signs, and development of problem behaviors, which can cause weakening of the human-animal bond and lead to euthanasia of the cat. Environmental enrichment may mitigate the effects of these problems and one approach is to take advantage of cats' natural instinct to work for their food.

Inaccessibility of reinforcement increases persistence and signaling behavior in the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger).

Under natural conditions, wild animals encounter situations where previously rewarded actions do not lead to reinforcement. In the laboratory, a surprising omission of reinforcement induces behavioral and emotional responses described as frustration. Frustration can lead to aggressive behaviors and to the persistence of noneffective responses, but it may also lead to new behavioral responses to a problem, a potential adaptation.

Are emotionally attached companion animal caregivers conscientious and neurotic? Factors that affect the human-companion animal relationship.

Few studies have examined how personality traits may be related to the amounts and types of attachments humans have toward companion animals (pets). In this study, 1,098 companion animal guardians (owners) completed a survey that included the Big Five Inventory, the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, and the Pet Attachment Questionnaire. Each participant chose whether he or she identified as a Cat Person, Dog Person, Both, or Neither.

The evolution of self-control.

Cognition presents evolutionary research with one of its greatest challenges. Cognitive evolution has been explained at the proximate level by shifts in absolute and relative brain volume and at the ultimate level by differences in social and dietary complexity. However, no study has integrated the experimental and phylogenetic approach at the scale required to rigorously test these explanations.

Fox squirrels match food assessment and cache effort to value and scarcity.

Scatter hoarders must allocate time to assess items for caching, and to carry and bury each cache. Such decisions should be driven by economic variables, such as the value of the individual food items, the scarcity of these items, competition for food items and risk of pilferage by conspecifics. The fox squirrel, an obligate scatter-hoarder, assesses cacheable food items using two overt movements, head flicks and paw manipulations.