Use sounds of nature to de-stress (and connect with nature)

As a cat caregiver you want to be in the best state of mind that you can achieve in order to discharge your duties and responsibilities towards your cat companion to the highest standard! 😉😎 A pretty fancy introduction don't you think? But essentially true. 

The modern world is pretty stressful because it's more competitive than ever before and there's that background noise of impending WW3 and that background noise of climate change which I think makes a lot of people anxious as it is ever present.

Listening to the sounds of nature to destress on your daily commute. Image: MikeB using AI - Bing's Copilot.

So, we need to do all we can to de-stress ourselves and I've always said that if everybody connected with nature by walking in a park every day for half an hour it would help. I do it (Richmond Park - a fabulous place). 

But if you can't do that then you can listen to the sounds of nature on your daily commute on the train which, according to a small study, reduced stress levels by 35% compared to those who had listened to nothing at all.

This is called a 'pilot study' because it's quite small and non-peer reviewed. It was commissioned by South Western Railway, a British railway company. They conducted the test on a loop-line from Waterloo Station and back to Waterloo station; a 45 minute circular journey leaving London and then returning. I have used that line often.

Forty-two passengers participated. The participants in one group were asked to listen to nature sounds for 15 minutes, followed by a 15-minute break, followed by 15 minutes of listening to audio of their choice such as music or perhaps a podcast.

The second group did the same thing in reverse order. Their mood was assessed using a questionnaire described as an "industry-standard mood assessment questionnaire".

They reported "a significant decrease in the average feelings of stress when the passengers listened to the nature-inspired soundscape as compared to their baseline levels".

The research has not been peer reviewed and neither has it been published in a scientific journal. It was carried out in consultation with Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford.

Comment: as mentioned in the first sentence, I believe that all humans need to ensure that they connect with nature because we come from nature. Too often we distance ourselves from nature with concrete, steel, televisions and mobile phones. We live in this human-generated artificial consumer-orientated techno-world which is anathema to nature. Connect with nature, walk in nature as best you can and as regularly as you can and it will help ease some of that pent-up stress and simmering anxiety.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins. Also: sources for news articles are carefully selected but the news is often not independently verified. Also, I rely on scientific studies but they are not 100% reliable.

My cat has Feline idiopathic cystitis and barely moves, how long will this sort of behavior last?

You should be able to cure this within a few to several days doing the following:

If the prescribed food is prescription diet dry food (vet recommended), stop it immediately. Provide high quality wet food only and give her for example boiled fish with some added water. Need to get water into her regularly and indefinitely.

Secondly, need to make the place less stressful for her. Incidentally female ginger tabbies are rare. If you are away all the time (understandable) it will cause stress - separation anxiety.

I am afraid you'll have to try and fix that problem (difficult). Idiopathic cystitis has 2 causes in my view: dry food + stress. Tackle both if you can. It'll work I feel pretty sure.

I see that you are tackling the stress element with a medication. Changing the environment is better and a permanent solution. Drugs aren't.

Vets tend to prescribe dry foods which are formulated to help cure cystitis but it is a misconceived policy as the cure is water to help flush the urinary tract system.

Dry foods cause mild dehydration which creates a good medium in which bacteria can develop in the bladder.

The above method should work within days.

Is she a full-time indoor cat left alone? If that is true, it is a sure-fire way to not solve the problem. Try some supervised outdoor activity. She needs to be active as well. Is she overweight? That won't help either. Sorry for being a bit tough. 😻😎

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Owners trick dogs with lemon slices in new animal exploitation trend on TikTok

A veterinarian, Dr. Anna Foreman, is yet another who has expressed concern about videos on TikTok in which animals are abused and exploited. TikTok has acquired a bit of a reputation for animal abuse videos; videos to attract viewers at any cost and the animal is there as a convenient subject to be used for this goal.

Owners trick dogs with lemon slices in new animal exploitation trend on TikTok. Screenshot.

On TikTok there is a hashtag  "#DogVSLemon" which has amassed 20.1 million views on the social media platform. That said, we should recognise the fact that TikTok statistics are heavily distorted by the way videos are looped to replay immediately after you've stop viewing it. I would estimate that all TikTok videos have received accurate views which are somewhere near a quarter of that which is stated adjacent to the video.

In one video which has apparently been viewed 16 million times, we see an uncomfortable puppy after its owner throws a lemon into its mouth. There has been a 65% increase in online searches for "dogs eating lemons".

It would seem that the amusing aspect of these videos is to see a dog's discomfort when they chomp down on a bitter lemon. Dr. Anna said that: “Many dogs will eat anything thrown at them (or grab any food on the floor etc.) without a second thought, often not even sniffing or tasting it first. “This can be good in a few scenarios, for example with giving a dog a tablet, however, it can be quite dangerous in many others.”

She added that “Sour citrus fruits such as lemon and lime tend not to be palatable to dogs, however if eaten in anything more than minimal quantities can cause gastrointestinal upsets or more severe clinical signs like collapse.

“Throwing food at a dog for them to catch is a choking hazard, particularly if the piece of food is too large to swallow whole.”

Owners who do this might at least slightly erode the relationship between themselves and their dog. They might undermine the trust that the dog has in them.

And it is also worth saying that this trick cannot be repeated with the same dog over and over again because they will learn that if they participate they'll be uncomfortable. It is a good example of negative reinforcement or punishment to alter behaviour. It is a clear-cut case of owners exploiting their companion dogs.

We have seen on numerous occasions owners exploiting companion cats in the same way. They are called "funny cat videos" but they aren't so funny for the cat because a study found that more than a third of cats in these videos are stressed.

RELATED: 34% of cats featured in ‘funny cat videos’ are upset and stressed.

Finally, a cat or dog might become stressed when performing the lemon throwing trick for a social media video. This may lead to aggression and that aggression might, on rare occasions, be directed at their owner or somebody else in the vicinity.

It is unwise behaviour and TikTok should stop it. They do promise to moderate videos but as usual for successful platforms like TikTok, the administrators have an impossible task. 

There are too many uploaded videos and they are therefore reliant upon other users to notify them of animal abuse or other policy breaches. This doesn't happen enough and never will. It is a failure within social media.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

"Curiosity killed the cat" is an adage which was "Care killed the cat" meaning anxiety

We all know the old saying "Curiosity killed the cat". It's a saying which fits cat behaviour. Domestic cats are, indeed, very curious. It gets him into trouble sometimes which is why they can be harmed because of their curiosity and even, rarely, killed. Therefore, the adage has some veracity.

Domestic cats' lack of understanding of activities and objects in the human world makes them nervous. Photo: Pixabay.

But the original version of this proverb, from its first appearance in the 16th century until the end of the 19th century was, "Care killed the cat".

Care meaning anxious

In this saying, the word "care" means to worry about or to be anxious about something or other. It points to the possibility that cats could become so anxious and worried about something that it could even kill them. And this, apparently, used to be a belief by many people back in the day when the saying was first created.

And interestingly, this concept of worry killing cats is being revisited by veterinarians. Perhaps it's being revisited in terms of the fact that anxiety in domestic cats can harm their health which can lead to on occasions a serious health problems and even death.

But apparently, about 25% of cat owners surveyed in a 2008 study believed that their cat was incapable of feeling anxiety or sadness. Times have changed thanks to the internet I would say which has educated many cat owners. It is believed now that cats can at least experience the basic emotions that humans experience which includes anxiety or sadness.

And if asked today, scientists would agree that the old version of the proverb is to a certain extent true. Anxiety does present as a serious and real affliction for many domestic cats.

Anxiety is defined as a fear of something that is not currently happening. And you will find that there are, today, some anti-anxiety drugs which have been developed for humans which can be used on cats off-licence. Although, we are still unsure as to whether domestic cat feels the same kind of anxiety that humans feel but we are sure that feline anxiety is similar to human anxiety.

Elavil for anxious cats sometimes. Last resort. Image: MikeB

Interestingly, in the study I mention, more than 60% of cat owners thought that domestic cats can be jealous. Almost 20% of the participants thought that cats can feel the emotion of embarrassment and more than 20% believed that cats can feel shame. Around 35% believed that cats can feel guilt and 40% were sure that cats experienced grief. About 60% thought that domestic cats experienced empathy.

Home range issues

The most common cause of anxiety in cats is to worry that their home range i.e. their territory is about to be invaded by other cats in the neighbourhood. This might apply to full-time indoor cats when looking out the window into the back yard.

Or they might feel this anxiety when living in a multi-cat home and where their territory is very compressed. Under these circumstances home ranges overlap a lot and there is a greater possibility for cats to develop anxiety because of intrusions into their home range.

When Dr. Jon Bradshaw conducted a survey of 90 cat owners in suburban Hampshire and rural Devon in 2000, the participants reported that almost 50% of their cats regularly fought with other cats. They confirmed that 40% of the cats were fearful of cats in general.

He states that he has a colleague, a veterinary surgeon, Rachel Casey, specialising in cat behavioural disorders who regularly diagnoses anxiety and fear. She believes that these emotions are main factors driving cats to urinate and defecate indoors outside of the litter box.

Forced to live with cat they don't trust and owner absence

As about half of domestic cats on that survey suffer from anxiety the old adage that I mention above carries some truth. And this leads to inappropriate defecation and urination inside the home. When cats defecate on bedsheets which by the way happened to my ex-wife's cat after my divorce, the cat is desperately trying to mingle their own smells with their owner's smells to establish ownership. 

It can be reassuring for a cat to do this. In my ex-wife's case I don't think this was about ownership of space but more about anxiety about her absence. Although she had introduced a new cat to the home which would have probably compounded the matter.

The stress of being forced to live with a cat or cat that they don't trust can affect a cat's health. The classic illness caused by stress is cystitis which veterinarians call idiopathic cystitis because there is no apparent cause of it.

66% urination problems

Dr. Jon Bradshaw tells me in his book Cat Sense that "As many as two thirds of cats taking to vets for urination problems-blood in the urine, difficult or painful urination, urinating in inappropriate places-have no obvious medical problems, other than inflammation of the bladder and intermittent blockage of the urethra by mucus thereby displaced from the bladder wall. The factors triggering such episodes of cystitis are therefore psychological."

Lack of understanding

When you think about it, there are a lot of things about the human world that domestic cats are going to struggle to understand because they are human. They can become acclimatised to them but constantly fail to understand them.

Certainly, new events and activities can make them anxious because of this failure to understand.

It's a reminder that we are different species and that our relationship as is an interspecies relationship and therefore quite special.

There are numerous activities which occur throughout the day and throughout the year which can cause anxiety and which are exclusively human in nature such as fireworks, delivery vans outside, the doorbell going off, the hoover being used and so on and so forth.

Owners aware

I think based upon this article that many cat owners should really be switched onto the possibility that their cat companion is going to stressed at some stage of their lives and they should look to the causes, the most common of which, as mentioned, is another cat or cats.

A stressed cat owner cannot be a good cat owner

We know how competently even brilliantly domestic cats can de-stress their owner. It's one reason why we live with cats. They are great companions and they help stop us from getting too wound up because once they are on your lap you have to slow down a bit. And they get in the way when you are on your computer. You either accept that and work around it or you fight it and become more anxious and stressed.

A stressed cat owner may have a stressed as well and a stress cat owner cannot really discharge their responsibilities to a high level. The image is by Michael.

But the point is that if a cat owner is stressed by their lifestyle, by their work or by any manner of reasons, they are not going to be a great cat caregiver.

Stress leads to anxiety and anxiety leads to depression. You can't be a good cat caregiver if you are stressed and anxious although, as mentioned, there is the counter measure which is that although being stressed prevents you being a good cat caregiver, living with a cat makes you a better cat caregiver because it calms you down! 

The problem is that in the meantime you are likely to interact with your cat in a less than good way because of your anxiety. If you are irritated because of stress then you are going to be irritated by your cat at some point. And you might yell at your cat or behave towards your cat in a brusque and unsatisfactory way. There is no blame in this. It is just a simple fact.

I know for a fact that if I'm stressed, I'm not going to present the best side of me in terms of cat caregiving. I might be irritated because my cat brushes against my bare legs and at that moment in time I don't want to feel that. I want to get on with what I'm doing and my cat is getting in the way of achieving that.

But in having a cat we have to be prepared to compromise and to give way to our cat. We are sharing the same environment as our cat. The environment should be pleasant and mentally stimulating for our cat.

It's an interesting mix because on the one side there is the responsibility of caring for a cat well and this in itself can make a person stressed, and yet on the other side there is the pleasure of looking after a cat and the pleasures that flow from it which helps to de-stress a person.

A person stressed by the responsibilities of caring for their cat

There is an interesting post on the Reddit.com website about a person who adopted a cat and became very stressed because they wanted to do their absolute best in looking after their cat. They did everything possible to make the life of their cat as good as possible.

In striving for this state of affairs, the cat owner became very stressed. They went to the Reddit.com website to ask for advice because the person didn't even feel a bond to their cat after doing so much for them. And they asked, "How can I stop holding the bar up so high for myself and revolve my life around my cat?"

I think the ultimate answer as to how you relate to your cat and care for your cat is that you must simply love her or him. If you love your cat everything good flows from that starting point. You will find out what your cat likes and loves and what makes them happy and indeed what makes you happy. And you will find out whether you are suited to being a cat caregiver. You've got to actually like or even love cats to successfully live with a cat companion. That must be a starting point and it is common sense but some people might not think about that when they decide to adopt a cat.

There's no point in regarding cat caregiving as solely a responsibility and a duty. It should be a pleasure to look after a cat. Then you receive the pleasure of living with your cat. It should be entirely reciprocal with equal mutual benefit.

Human to human relationship

There is another quick point to make which is this: if you are in a relationship with a person which is not going that well and you both live in the same home as your cat, it's going to affect your cat negatively, which probably goes without saying. It is another source of stress for you and it will taint the ambience of the household. Domestic cats pick up on that. They demand, really, a calm and stable household.

Effect of stress on cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and healthy cats

Feline idiopathic cystitis is linked to stress and it is very painful for domestic cats to suffer from this disease. A study evaluated the behaviour and physiological responses of cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and cats that were healthy.

RELATED: Why does stress exacerbate cystitis in domestic cats?

The way they achieved this was to look after the cats in a controlled environment for about a year. They had the same people looking after the cats and everything was stable. And then suddenly they destabilised the situation by feeding the cats at different times by different people. The whole husbandry of the participating cats was messed up with the deliberate purpose of stressing the cats concerned.

And when they did this there was a clear indication that there were specific sickness behaviours as a result such as vomiting, diarrhoea, anorexia or decrease food and water intake. There was also lethargy, fever, somnolence and enhanced pain-like behaviours. There was decreased general activity and the cats cared for themselves less actively and to the same standard. They socially interacted less often. In short, there are many signs of unhappy stressed cats in their health and in their behaviour.

They concluded that stresses which are short-term can lead to a significant increase in "sickness behaviours" both in cats with feline idiopathic cystitis and those cats that are healthy.

They further concluded that humans can assess stress responses and overall welfare of cats through monitoring of their sickness behaviours.

In detail - this is provided by Chat GPT

The purpose of the study was to investigate the behavioral and physiological responses of healthy cats and cats diagnosed with feline interstitial cystitis (FIC) when exposed to a five-day stressor. The researchers conducted the study at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center (OSUVMC) vivarium, where ten healthy cats and 18 cats with FIC were housed. 

All cats had been living in enriched cages for at least one year before the experiment, receiving daily playtime, socialization outside of the cage, food treats, and auditory enrichment. The cats were cared for by two familiar caretakers, following a consistent daily schedule. During the test days, the cats were subjected to multiple unpredictable stressors. These stressors included exposure to unfamiliar caretakers, an inconsistent husbandry schedule, and discontinuation of playtime, socialization, food treats, and auditory enrichment. 

The researchers monitored the cats for sickness behaviors (SB), which included vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia or decreased food and water intake, fever, lethargy, somnolence, enhanced pain-like behaviors, decreased general activity, body care activities (grooming), and social interactions. SB occurrences were recorded daily. In addition to monitoring the behavioral responses, the researchers also collected blood samples from the cats before and after the stress period to measure various physiological parameters.

These included serum cortisol concentration, leukocytes (white blood cells), lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell), neutrophils (another type of white blood cell), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte (N:L) ratio, and mRNA levels of the cytokines interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). The results of the study showed that both healthy cats and cats with FIC exhibited a significant increase in sickness behaviors when exposed to the short-term stressors. 

However, specific physiological changes, such as lymphopenia (reduced lymphocyte count) and alterations in the N:L ratio, were observed only in the cats with FIC. The researchers concluded that monitoring cats for sickness behaviors can be a noninvasive and reliable method to assess their stress responses and overall welfare, especially when they are housed in cages. By studying the behavioral and physiological responses to stressors, the study provides insights into the impact of stress on cats with FIC and highlights the importance of managing stress in these animals for their well-being. Regenerate response

Help! 5-year-old black cat sibling marking all over the house. Possible reasons.

 This is the Reddit.com post supporting the title. What to do?

He has 3000 sq ft of house and attic to roam and play. Has a brother from same litter and both are very socialized. They sleep w us every night in our bed. He has a massive outdoor catio jungle in my backyard (50ft x 80 ft) with a 100ft tunnel that runs under Palms and leads to his lizard hunting paradise. 3 litter boxes scattered throughout the house that are always clean w fresh litter. I’ve tried just about everything… still always cleaning up cat piss from walls, carpets, couch. It’s a nightmare 😱 need advice??!!

My answer would be three possibilities on the basis that the cat has been neutered which is the default situation.

The picture is here to illustrate the page only. This is not the cat in question. Image in the public domain.

Clearly, if the cat is not neutered then there is a much higher chance that they will mark territory. But as mentioned on the presumption that the cat is neutered one possible reason is that the brothers no longer get along. 

Siblings become independent

This may well happen because when siblings in the wild grow up they become independent. They leave the natal home range and go in search of their own home range. Their sibling then becomes just another individual occupying their territory. They are independent cats. They are solitary, essentially. The fact that they are siblings no longer helps to ensure that they get along.

So, this particular individual might feel stressed by the presence of his sibling and is marking territory to send a message to his brother that this is his home range and he is unwanted. Marking territory helps to calm him down because he creates his little home which smells like him.

Although siblings can get along it is not a certainty. The idea that adopting two siblings automatically gives you two cats who will keep each company and get along all their lives is a fallacy.

Separation anxiety?

Another possibility is that the owner is not around enough which is creating separation anxiety in one cat. This is happening despite the fact that the person has created a very nice cat environment with lots of things to do and to stimulate them mentally. That is irrelevant in terms of the particular problem clearly otherwise the problem would not exist.

Medical

A third possibility is that the cat who is said to be spraying is not actually spraying urine but is depositing small spots of bloody urine around the home due to cystitis. This is also heavily linked to stress. Dry cat food may exacerbate the problem.

These are three possibilities. When a cat is spraying inside the home it is invariably to do with a mental issue triggered by stress of some sort. That needs to be addressed. The source of stress needs to be found, isolated and then removed.

There are deficiencies in indoor cat housing causing multiple behavioural problems

The title comes from a study dated 1997 of around 1200 cats living indoors full-time.

Many more domestic cats are full-time indoor cats today, 2023, then there were 20 years ago. There is a trend towards keeping domestic cat indoors full-time. 

The domestic cat, it is said, is barely domesticated. They retain, underneath the surface, their wild cat behaviours. This includes the size of their home range and all the other behaviours to do with a solitary, predatory lifestyle.

Full-time indoor cat superhighway. An important aspect of creating a good indoor environment. Image in public domain.

In 1997, a study assessed the behaviour of just under 1200 full-time indoor cats owned by 550 owners. A total of 65% of the cats were standard random-bred cats described as "domestic European shorthairs". 

Just under 80% were sterilized animals. Comment: this is a quite a high percentage of unsterilised domestic cats which may have had an effect on the conclusions because unsterilised gets retain more of their wild cat inherited behaviours all of which will be unwanted by a human.

87 percent of the owners were female and 59% of the household had more than one cat with an average of 2.2 cats per household.

On average, an individual cat used 34 m² of living space and had five different resting places.

Cat walks. Important for full-time indoor cats. Image in public domain.

Importantly, the owner's bed was the favourite resting place in 52% of the cases. Comment: this is because the owner's bed carries the most body odour of any other area in the home. And body odour is very important to domestic cats. It's also why sometimes domestic cats defecate on their owner's bed when they are stressed. They want to merge their scent in their faeces with the scent of their owner to reassure themselves.

RELATED: Every full-time indoor cat should have a window box (at least).

55% of the owners let the cat out under various levels of control. 79% fed their cats in the kitchen and 24% of the cats had communal food bowls.

A total of 51% of the cats had to share their cat toilet. Comment: this is a very bad policy. Jackson Galaxy, the well-known American cat behaviourist advises that there should be one cat litter per cat plus one extra. 

You do not want resource guarding behaviour by a dominant cat over a subservient cat which might take place if there isn't enough litter trays. And to share food bowls will help promote the same problem.

22% of the cat were fed in the same room as their toilet. That means that one-fifth of cases the food bowl was in the same room as the litter tray which is also a very bad idea.

The picture painted by the study is that the owners were not doing a great job looking after their full-time indoor cats. This is probably why in 54.7% of the households the owners complained of one or more behavioural problems with their cats.

The owners were given self-assessment questionnaires. The most often mentioned cat behaviour problems were:

• A state of anxiety in 16.7% of the cats,
• 15.2% of the cat scratched furniture,
• Feeding problems accounted for 10.9% of complaints,
• 10.5% of cat owners complained about cat aggression
• 8.2% of the owners complained about inappropriate urination and urine spraying
• And defecation in the home was a problem in 5.2% of the cases.

They concluded that neutered females exhibited problems most often. Owners with children complained more often about cat behaviour. Comment: probably because the kids were mishandling the cats and getting scratched and the cats were getting stressed.

When the owner spent more time interacting with their cat i.e. for several hours spread over the day they mentioned problems less often.

Cat owners spent less effort trying to resolve cat anxiety problems and scratching furniture problems than other problems.

In many cases the owners were unable to solve the problems on their own

The overall conclusion was that "there are deficiencies in indoor cat housing and that owners need help to correct them."

RELATED: The big flaw that is never admitted in keeping cats indoors full-time.

I have said it before; with the trend for full-time indoor cats not enough is being done in parallel with this to ensure that the environment is adequate as a good substitute for the indoor/outdoor environment. This is going to cause behavioural problems. This may in turn lead to an increase in cats being abandoned to shelters or simply dumped.

Study: Housing conditions and behavioural problems of indoor cats as assessed by their owners. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-1591(96)01134-3

For cats, cat cafés are like an innocent human being banged up in prison and beaten up

Ben the Vet on TikTok has an interesting take on cat cafés. He thinks they are unsuitable for cats. He seems to disagree with the entire concept. I think he'd get rid of them if he had the power to do so. The point he is making is that in cat cafés, a rather large number of cats are confined to a rather small space and this creates pressure on them territorially.

At a fundamental level domestic cats have the character of the African wildcat which is solitary. Domestic cats have learned to be social creatures over the nine thousand years of domestication but their solitariness is ever present and beyond a certain point being confined with many other cats can put too much pressure on some of them.

They become stressed and a fight can break out as seen in the video. This is why I disagree with multi-cat homes. Normally people who want to own many cats and keep then locked in their home are pretty insensitive to their cats' needs.

RELATED: Are cat cafés ethical?

For me they are ego-centric. They want a lot of cats for personal reasons. How the cats feel is secondary. It should be the other way around.

I think Ben has exaggerated the problem a bit with his analogy but it's an interesting one and it got me thinking which is why, I think, he said it.

And he mentions cystitis being caused exclusively by stress. He's suggesting that cats in cat cafes are going to be predisposed to contracting cystitis. And possibly get a bite and cat bites can be serious because of the bacterial infection injected under the skin. They wound will need to be washed out and the puss removed and the cat put on a course of antibiotics.

Squabbling cats at a cat cafe. Screenshot.

Brenda Edwards’ Ragdoll cats lost their hair from stress after her son's death

Brenda Claudina Susan Edwards is an English singer, actress, television personality and presenter.

 

Comment

It seems that Jamal was very close to their two cats, and one in particular. Brenda says that they lost their hair immediately after his death. That's a very general statement which implies that all their hair fell out which is impossible. 

It is more likely that she is referring to bald patches appearing on the cats who began to over-groom themselves to alleviate the stress of losing Jamal. Grooming is a pleasurable experience for a domestic cat.

They stayed outside Jamal's bedroom door for ten days after his death waiting for him to appear as the door was kept closed for the entire time.

Tiny and Tempa. They have to be siblings. Image: Instagram. They are Ragdoll cats.

With respect to Brenda, I think it was a bad idea to keep Jamal's door closed. Left open the cats Tiny and Tempa could have entered and snoozed on the bedclothes which would have provided them with some comfort.

She added:

‘Tiny’s getting better, but Tempa – who was the main cat that he used to love and stroke – she’s still missing hair.’

She took them to the vet who recognised that something had changed. He diagnosed stress. You can alleviate stress by increasing interactions and play. You can add some artificial pheromones to the environment which may reduce stress.

It seems that she did not do these things. She didn't know, I guess. But the story does remind us that cats grieve on the death of a close companion (or do they?). Although this is probably anxiety more than pure grief. It is one of the more sophisticated emotions.

It reminds us that cats are sentient.

RELATED: Cats Feel Jealousy but Not Grief.

One key factor in reducing stress in dogs and cats in shelters is human interaction

Stress has long been recognized as a significant factor in the well-being of animals, including dogs, and has been the subject of numerous studies in both laboratory and shelter settings. These studies have shown that stress can have both physiological and behavioral consequences, including the production of the hormone cortisol (also known as the glucocorticoid hormone). 

Volunteers sit with rescue animals to reduce stress during a storm. Image in public domain.

Elevated levels of cortisol can have negative effects on an animal's health and behavior, and it is therefore important to identify ways to reduce stress in animals, particularly those in shelters.

One key factor in reducing stress in dogs in shelters is human interaction. Research has consistently shown that social support, including interaction with humans, can help to buffer the stress response in animals, including dogs. This may be due to the fact that social interaction can stimulate the production of oxytocin, a hormone that has been shown to reduce cortisol levels and improve well-being.

Enrichment activities centered on human interaction, such as training and play, have been found to be particularly effective in reducing stress in shelter dogs. These activities can also help to improve the behavioral suitability of dogs for adoption, as they may reduce aggressive responses in temperament tests.

It is important to note that the effects of stress on dogs can extend beyond the initial exposure to a stressful event. There is evidence that long-term consequences of stress, including changes in behavior and brain function, can occur even after the initial stressor has been removed. This highlights the importance of addressing stress in shelter dogs not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term.

90% of bald cat bellies are caused by this

 This about the reason for a healthy cat having a bald belly. It is common sense really.

Classic example of a bald belly caused by overgrooming. Image: Reddit user: u/Kimimyu
 

90% of cases of baldness on the belly are due to overgrooming by the cat themselves. It is called 'barbering' as it is as if the cat has gone to the barbers for a No. 1. Self-grooming is a pleasant experience for a domestic cat and the belly is easily accessible. 

It helps to counteract the negative emotions caused by stress. Therefore, the cause is stress. What has caused the stress? It is down to the owner to understand how and when cats can be stressed and eliminate those causes. The link below goes to pages on how stress can be caused:

Cat stress

That is about it. Or at least that is the first thing that the cat's owner should do to stop barbering. If there is no apparent stress, I'd watch the cat and look for overgrooming. No overgrooming? Look for ill health. But this cat looks healthy, and the owner does not report signs of ill-health.

If in doubt, see a vet. The usual common-sense mantra.

How do I know the 90% figure? Dr Bruce Fogle told me. He is the best-known vet in the UK and a brilliant author as well. I highly recommend his book Complete Cat Care available on Amazon.

Some causes of stress

Some more to fill out the page.  There are many causes of stress in a household in which there are domestic cats. One of them is problems within the multi-cat household. Don't think that if you adopt a new cat to be a friend of a resident cat that it will automatically work out well. In fact, it is more likely that it won't.

The problem is this: domestic cats in following their wild cat ancestor, are territorial. They want a home range and for cats living indoors full-time, that home range is much, much smaller than it would normally be if they were living outside.

Domestic cats protect their home range from invading cats. Both these factors contribute to the potential for arguments between a resident cat who settled in their home range and the invading cat i.e., the newly adopted cat entering their home range without the resident cat's consent!

And don't forget that resident cats will look upon their home range as a place where there are resources. Resources such as food, comfort, protection, warmth and security.

Anything or anybody which jeopardises or threatens those resources causes stress.

A new baby coming into the home can also be a source of stress and the same goes for a stranger coming to live in the home.

But of all these possibilities, which by the way would include moving home, an incoming new cat is the greatest source of stress to a resident cat.

A problem here is that cats are inscrutable. They have limited facial expressions. They don't give much away in the look in their eyes. They will convey their feelings through their actions such as increased marking of their territory which as you know mean spraying urine normally and scratching furniture. 

They might leave faeces unburied and, as mentioned in the article above, they might overgroom to relieve stress. Perhaps over-grooming is the best giveaway that a domestic cat is stressed.

Other signs of stress would be excessive vocalising, eating too much, not eating enough and possibly idiopathic cystitis which is a bladder infection which occurs without any obvious reason.

The cure for domestic cat's stress is to look for the underlying cause through analysis of their behaviour and of their environment and then eliminating it.

Siblings

People like Jackson Guy, rightly state that if you adopt two siblings, that get on well from a rescue centre, it is better than adopting a single individual cat. However, siblings don't always get along. They might be very friendly when they are kittens, but their relationship may cool, and brothers and sisters may end up hating living with each other. More potential stress.

Volunteers sitting with the animals during 4th July firework celebrations

All that I have of this story is this photograph and it is a great photograph of volunteers sitting with the rescue animals at an unknown shelter in the US on July 4 to comfort them when the fireworks start to go off. It is a heartwarming photograph. A photograph to soften the hardened heart. A heart hardened by the usual hassles of living on this planet which for most of us isn't that easy at least some of the time. There are good people out there and they volunteer their time.

Volunteers sitting with the animals during 4th July firework celebrations. Photo: Facebook page of 'Artistic Freedom'.

I guess, too, that the people benefit because they are able to mix with like-minded people so it is a great way to socialise. And of course, they know that they are doing something good in helping animals who are already stressed by being confined to small cages in a noisy shelter with strange people wandering by from time to time.

I am sure that stress is the biggest psychological problem for rescue cats and dogs in shelters. It affects their behaviour which in turn affects their adaptability. For them it is a double whammy of stress-inducing influences because they are already stressed and they going to be stress some more because of the strange and loud noises. Well done to these people. The photograph caught my eye and I felt that I needed to circulate it on the Internet a little bit.

The Internet does not help me in trying to find out how commonplace this type of volunteer work is in the USA. My gut feeling is that it is not that uncommon but it is the first time that I've seen this kind of photograph and I have seen tens of thousands of photographs of animal shelters.

Owner-surrendered cats find animal shelters harder to deal with than stray cats

This might be common knowledge among animal shelter workers but I think it's still worth repeating. A study published in 2007: Behavioral differences between owner surrender and stray domestic cats after entering an animal shelter, found that when a cat owner surrendered their domestic cat companion to a shelter the cat found the whole shelter experience more stressful than stray cats brought to the shelter.

Shelter tabby cat keen to be adopted. Photo: Pixabay.

I can't read the detailed conclusion or the reasons behind this finding because I have to pay for access to the entire study but I think I can reasonably guess the reason why. 

Domestic cats are used to a friendly environment. Stray cats are used to a hostile environment. When a stray cat goes into a shelter there is perhaps not a lot of difference in the sense of hostility that the environment brings to them. But for a domestic cat it's a shock. They go from what should be a calm, pleasant environment to one which is noisy and where there are a lot of people coming and going and cats and dogs in cages making noises.

It is a foregone conclusion that an owner-surrendered cat is likely to feel stressed. The amount of stress they feel will depend upon their personality and their previous lifestyle.

In this study they examined 86 domestic cats (some of whom were stray cats). They measured their behaviour for the first three days after entering an animal shelter. They labelled the owner-surrendered cats as "OS" and the stray cats as "S".

The conclusion was:

"Results indicate that OS cats showed the greatest behavioral measures of stress and arousal compared to S cats."

They also found that the "mean behavioural stress rating" of cats that had been euthanised due to illness or disease was significantly higher in the OS group compared to the S group.

Further, when they examined archival data from 260 shelter cats that had developed an upper respiratory infection, the OS cats became ill much sooner than the S cats. They concluded that this was because they suffered from more stress than the S cats.

OS cats suffer from more stress than S cats when entering a shelter environment which impacts their behaviour, their health and general well-being. It can also lead to euthanasia as opposed to being adopted.

It's is a known fact that shelters can be very stressful places for cats. It makes them prone to behavioural problems and health issues. These include weight loss, self-trauma, over-grooming, aggression, withdrawal, bladder problems and upper respiratory infections.

A strong suggestion is that the best way to reduce stress in residents who are at a shelter in the long term is to remove them to a foster home which gets them out of the shelter environment. They should stay there until they are adopted. This should not just be a de-stressing tool. And foster carers should be trained and allowed to adopt out cats in their care.

The shelter can make arrangements to advertise the cats online and at their facility in the usual way and then refer potential adopters to the foster carer's home to meet the cat and discuss adoption.

An alternative is to divide shelter cats into two groups: one group is better able to deal with the shelter environment and are fast tracked for adoption while the second group may become more stressed and are therefore subject to more attention to alleviate stress and make their stay more acceptable to them. This should happen as soon as they enter the shelter.

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats?

This is a cross post - click this for the earlier post. Three scientists conducted an experiment as to whether the scented i.e. unwashed clothes, of domestic cat human caregiver's provided what they describe as a "secure base effect" (SBE) for their cats. To cut out the technical language, they wanted to see whether cats obtained reassurance from the unwashed clothes of their owners when their owners were absent; away from the home or perhaps asleep at night. Are smelly clothes a substitute for the presence of cat owners in terms of reassuring the domestic cat companions?

Do you believe scientists who say that smelly clothes don't reassure domestic cats? Image in public domain.

I would expect that nearly all cat owners would say that they are at least a second-best substitute. Many cat owners place an unwashed item of clothing in a cat carrier to help to reassure their cat when they take them to a veterinarian for instance. Or they leave an item of clothing with their cat when they are boarded at a cattery when they are away on holiday.

And of course you see thousands of pictures on the Internet of cat sleeping on beds which contain copious amounts of body odour from their owner or domestic cats sleeping on their owner's favourite chair. Domestic cat sleep on the laps of owners because it is warmer and because it smells of their owner. The scientist will say that these are all anecdotal forms of evidence.

They wanted to address the issue through science and provide a scientific, objective answer as to whether smelly clothes reassure domestic cats. And they say that they DO NOT! This runs counter to conventional wisdom on cat caregiving.

ASSOCIATED PAGE: 14 links between stress in domestic cats and health implications

They conducted the experiment in what was a strange place for the cats. The cats would have been brought there in carriers. The room would have been quite stark I expect and there would have been other interfering aspects such as strange noises and strange people. I believe that when you place a domestic cat into an entirely new place which might be perceived as being hostile to them, you cannot expect them to behave normally. And if you can't expect them to behave normally you can't measure natural behaviours.

The researchers found that when cats were left in a room without their owner being present but with the benefit of smelly clothing from their owner they did not use those clothes to seek reassurance. When their owner was in the room with them their stress levels went down but the clothes did not reduce stress levels as judged through their behaviour when their owners left the room.

ASSOCIATED: Study says that cats are prone to separation anxiety in homes with two female residents

They concluded, firmly, that this was scientific evidence that cats don't obtain a "secure base effect" from scented objects belonging to their owner. I would argue, as mentioned, that the study is tainted by the abnormal behaviour of the cats brought about because they were out of their home range and placed in a strange place with can induce a mild sense of panic and anxiety which masks normal behaviours.

The use of scented clothes to help reduce a well-known condition called "separation anxiety" in felines appears to have been debunked by this study. You make up your own mind. I have made up mine as you can see. There is too much first hand experience to show that scented clothes are very important to domestic cat because the smell of objects is a vital part of their lives. The use their sense of smell as much as they use their eyesight. Humans rely far more heavily on their eyesight.

Note: The scientists are: Alexandra C.Behnkea, Kristyn R.Vital and Monique A.R.Udella who, I believe, conducted the study at Animal Health & Behavior, Distance Education, Unity College, 49 Farm View Drive, Suite 201, New Gloucester, ME 04260, USA.

Reasons female cats pee on things

The reasons why a female cat might pee on things are the same reasons that a male cat might be on things. The question is one of Google's predictive questions meaning that they ask questions for you in the belief that they know what you want to ask.

Stress is a factor in inappropriate peeing. Image: MikeB.

I'm going to interpret the word "pee" very widely to include urinating and spraying. Clearly, female cats are just as likely to eliminate inappropriately as male cats. Therefore, if they don't pee in the litter box it may be because the substrate i.e. the litter material, is not a good match for that cat. Domestic cats do have a preference or they can object to a certain litter material. Declawed cats pee outside the litter tray 6 times more often than non-declawed cats. Tender feet and stress are the cause?! Or the litter tray might be in the wrong position. 

Or in a multi-cat household she may be bullied and therefore is forced to urinate outside the litterbox because she is forced off it i.e. there are not enough litter trays. Or the bullying may cause her to feel stressed and anxious.

On the subject of anxiety and stress, it can lead to what is called feline idiopathic cystitis (FIC) which is cystitis caused by no known cause except the cause is going to be stress and anxiety. If you combined that mental state with a permanent diet of dry cat food there is a possibility that the cat will develop urinary tract problems and a bacterial infection which leads to cystitis. The major cause of FIC is conflict with another cat in the home.

Male cats are more prone to cystitis because of their anatomy, however.

Female cats do spray urine just like males but less so. They are territorial like male cats. They have their own home range. But they don't defend it so aggressively compared to males. That is probably why people ask whether female cats do spray urine. Urine spraying is like a calling card as it tells are the cats that this is the resident cat's home range.

The matter of a home range is relevant to multi-cat households as well because the home ranges are much compressed which is one reason why without careful management the cats can become stressed or a timid cat can become stressed and spray.

The bottom line in answering the question as to the reasons why a female cat might pee inappropriately or spray is because of cystitis, stress and anxiety and/or defending a home range. Of these 3, the most common will be stress as it can lead to cystitis and spraying. Separation anxiety is a factor here too.

Feral cats have lower incidence of cystitis compared to domestic cats. This is probably because they are less emotionally stressed but they are probably more physically stressed.

Can stress make cats sick?

Yes, stress can make domestic cats sick. It's the same with people which clearly supports the argument that stress makes domestic cats sick. The best-known sickness arising out of stress is feline idiopathic cystitis. This is cystitis with no known or obvious cause. 

 Can stress make cats sick? Yes, but not in this cat. Photo: MikeB

It's ironic because the cause is often stress. The condition is better described as feline interstitial cystitis (FIC) which is a chronic pain syndrome of domestic cats. It is basically a recurring cystitis the symptom of which is peeing in small amounts around the home. Sometimes to pee is bloody. Cats with FIC have chronic, recurrent lower urinary tract signs and other associated disorders that are exacerbated by stressors.

SOME PAGES ON STRESSED CAT - CLICK TO READ THEM IF YOU WISH.

They did a study on this in 2013. The study was entitled: Effects of stressors on the behaviour and physiology of domestic cats. They employed 10 healthy cats and 18 cats with FIC. The study was conducted at the Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Centre. They housed the cats in "enriched cages" for at least one year prior to the experiment! Comment: I don't like this experiment. It appears to be an abuse but it was done many years ago so there's no point in complaining.

All the cats were treated well in these cages with plenty of enrichment and interaction with people that they knew. They had food treats and were taken out of the cages sometimes. Then during the test days, they withheld all these pleasantries which made the cats' lives a lot worse. 

They tested the effect that this had on the cats. They found that sickness behaviours including vomiting, diarrhoea, anorexia or decreased food and water intake, fever, lethargy, decreased activity and a reduction in self-grooming occurred in varying amounts in both the healthy and the FIC cats.

However, in cats suffering from FIC they found that there were changes in lymphopenia and N:L (neutrophil:lymphocyte). Lymphopenia is a condition in which there are less than the normal number of lymphocytes, a type of white blood cells in the blood. White blood cells are part of the immune system as they attack invading organisms. Therefore, a lowering of white blood cells will reduce the cat's immune system.

The neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio is a method, as I understand it, to measure stress. It is the number of neutrophils divided by the number of lymphocytes. Under physiologic stress, the number of neutrophils increases while the number of lymphocytes decreases.

Can stress make cats sick? Yes, as is the case in humans and the most commonly associated illness is feline idiopathic cystitis. You can read about that disease by clicking on this link if you wish. The main cause of feline idiopathic cystitis is conflict with another cat in a multi-cat home.

Wife went back to the office this week, her favorite cat is waiting sadly at her empty desk

The headline comes direct from Reddit.com because I can't beat it. This is happening all over America and Europe; cats suddenly and unceremoniously left without their human companion who they've been close to for 18 months or thereabouts due to social distancing measures i.e. lockdowns.

Wife went back to the office this week, her favorite cat is waiting sadly at her empty desk. Photo: Reddit.com user: u/HawkTheHawker

The same is happening for dogs perhaps even more so. This is because a lot of people adopted dogs during the coronavirus pandemic and all they've known is to be with their human companion all day long. Suddenly, their owner is going back to work at the office and bingo, a puppy who's lived most of his life with an owner who was always there is suddenly alone. This is going to cause a lot of distress for the dog and I guess for the owner if they are genuinely concerned.

And cats aren't quite as independent as people make them out to be. Domestic cats have become social creatures and they love to have their owner at home with them. As you can see in the photograph they particularly like the desk with a computer because this is where their owner has been working and of course the computer gives off some heat which they also like.

The cats are simply not going to understand it. It will take some time for them to settle down and revert back to the old routine. In the meantime, I would guess that some of them will suffer from separation anxiety. There will be a few cases of cats being a bit naughty because if they become stressed it can be manifested in what people describe as 'bad behaviour' such as spraying urine or perhaps scratching and even perhaps becoming a little more aggressive because they are irritated.

Their owners will be distressed too because they will miss their cats. There is a big argument that people should be allowed to take their pets to their workplace. Apple, as I recall, allow dogs or is it Google? I think it's actually Google who allow this. Google has a very open attitude towards the workplace which is very evident. Everything within a Google office is untypical but geared up to creative thinking and productivity. The presence of a companion dog arguably improves productivity. There may even be a study on the topic which supports this.

It is much harder for cats to be brought to the office for obvious reasons although it does happen. The Foreign Office of the UK government used to have an office cat called Palmerston but he didn't really like it and he was pensioned off. Larry at Number 10 Downing Street is more at home and he's been there for quite a long time. It's worked out well and I'm sure he contributes. These are high profile examples of working cats and offices. There should be more but the complication is that a person or persons need to look after the cat and these will be volunteers. That's what happens at Number 10 Downing Street. And I recall they even use their own money for the purpose because there is no official funding for Larry. Larry was spraying when Dilyn the PM's dog was adopted.

A lot of animal rescue organisations are particularly concerned about dogs because they foresee a lot of abandonments of newly adopted dogs by inexperienced people who haven't really researched what dog ownership entails because they've hastily bought into the idea of adopting a sweet flat-based puppy such as a French Bulldog during lockdown. 

They discover that dog ownership is unviable when they return to the office which is happening right now. So, they offer the dog for sale online. They have to sell because their cute puppy cost them £3,500 which is a lot more than they normally cost due to market forces. And if you sell a companion animal online you generate some problems, at least potentially. 

And the dog, of course, is then being pushed around from pillar to post which is unhelpful particularly when they are young and going through those developmental years. It could result in the dog becoming badly behaved i.e. developing bad habits which lead to the possibility of the new owner passing on the dog. These are the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic in respect of companion animals.

Does Royal Canin Calm work?

Yes, Royal Canin Calm does work. I can verify this because I have tried it out on my cat. He does not need calming but I wanted to try it out because on occasions he can be a little bit hyperactive and I wanted to see whether this took the edge of his behaviour. It did.

My cat chilled out!

However, I do not let him eat Royal Canin Calm exclusively. Far from it, in fact. I mix a little bit in with his standard dry food which he grazes on during the night so this calming dry food is only a relatively small part of his diet. Despite that relatively small amount it still has an effect.

I can clearly see the difference. He looks a little bit more chilled out and perhaps it is fair to say that he sleeps a bit more. This is exactly how I like him so I will probably continue with this mix of standard dry cat food which for me and him it is Hills Oral Care.

Clearly it is going to depend on the individual cat as to how this product works and I suspect that in some cats it won't work as well as in other cats. However, it is definitely worth a try if you're cat is noticeably anxious. And it certainly is applicable in times of general stress such as when fireworks are being set off or when moving home.

How does the product work? They say they use hydrolysed milk protein "which contains a peptide that regulates stress, and L-tryptophan, which can increase serotonin (the happy hormone) levels.

How do peptides regulate stress? There is an online study which appears to be on the subject. It is called "Stress peptides sensitise fear circuitry to promote passive coping". The study is completely unintelligible to me!

Another study published on the Eureka Alert website which came out of Northwestern University Medical School and San Diego State University says that "a peptide found in the brain and in the body can reduce both hormonal and behavioural manifestations of stress."

They say that in people who are depressed there are abnormal levels of this peptide. This discovery may help doctors diagnose and treat depression and other stress-related illnesses.

In what appears to be an animal test, they administered the peptide prior to exposure to stress and it significantly reduced levels of corticotropin or ACTH , (by 50%), a hormone that plays a major role in controlling the body's response to stress.

Who Said Cats Don't Have Emotions?

Here's a video of two cats who I would say are closely related. They have similar coloration and they are clearly very close emotionally. The larger and perhaps senior cat is, on the face of it, comforting the other cat.

They are both in a stressful situation. It is a time when at an emotional level they need some comforting and it is being provided. It is impossible not to believe that these cats are feeling emotions, particularly the emotion that goes with being caged in a cat shelter with noises and strange things happening; anxiety.

The reaction is an emotional one, a desire to comfort and a desire to receive comfort. It is a charming video which I believe supports the view that domestic cats have emotions.

Little by little there is a gradual awakening to the fact that domestic animals feel emotions and indeed a very substantial proportion, well over 50%, of concerned cat owners believe that their cat can feel compassion and a similar percentage although slightly lower believe that they can feel jealousy. These people have a closer bond than usual with their cat.

I'm not sure that this depth of emotion is true or whether the cat owners are projecting their emotions upon their cat but anecdotally it could be argued that domestic cats have the ability to feel what are described as secondary emotions.

The other day I was out for a walk with my neighbor. She has a cat. We discussed cat emotions. She was adamant that cats do not feel emotions. She said that domestic cats behave instinctively. Yes, domestic cats do behave instinctively but that does not preclude the possibility that they feel emotions.

The point that I'm making is that a lot of cat owners are unaware that it is likely that domestic cats feel emotions. The real debate is how deep and how complex they are. It is obvious that domestic cats feel contentment and can feel depressed (often through chronic illness) although pretty well all of us now realize that domestic cats instinctively hide their vulnerabilities in the interests of survival.

There is another argument concerning how over the 10,000 years of the domestication of the cat that they have evolved into possessing a strong ability to learn from their human companions. They observe and learn. This, for example is where we see some domestic cats opening doors by turning the door handle. The point I'm making here is that it may be the case that the domestic cat has developed his or her emotions during domestication. Their behavior is less instinctive than that of their wildcat ancestor. It is more learned in a highly domesticated humanized environment. This should encourage the development and refinement of emotions.