Practical feline behaviour understanding cat behaviour and improving welfare

92 Chapter 6

Compulsive behaviours

Over-grooming/self trauma

As mentioned previously over-grooming can be a response to stress in the cat; how-
ever, in the majority of cases an underlying medical cause is the more likely reason for
the behaviour.

Pica/wool sucking

Pica is the ingestion of inedible items. It is a behaviour that may start with the cat
or kitten sucking wool or other similar fabrics and then progressing to ingestion
of the original material and/or other items. It has been linked with both early
weaning and other potential stressors such as changes associated with life stages
and poor environmental enrichment (Bradshaw et al., 1997). However, a more
recent study found no association with early weaning or insufficient environmental
enrichment but did find that cats exhibiting pica are less likely to be fed ad-lib
(Demontigny-Bédard et al., 2016).
Possible medical causes of this behaviour include:

● Diseases affecting the central nervous system, e.g. FeLV associated myelopathy,
feline infectious peritonitis and cognitive dysfunction.
● Gastric disorders, e.g. gastric motility disorder, gastric discomfort and poly-
phagia.
● Oral pain or discomfort (Bowen and Heath, 2005; Frank, 2014).

Acute Stress – the Influence on Physiological Parameters

Stress that is of short duration is less likely to be directly damaging to health and
well-being unless frequently and persistently repeated. But acute stress can have
short-term effects on physiological parameters including:

● Heart rate.
● Blood pressure.
● Respiratory rate.
● Chemical concentrations in the blood, e.g. glucose.

Because they are short lived, these changes are of little concern but they can provide
false results to veterinary tests and examinations and thereby hinder correct diagno-
ses of disease.

Assessing Stress

Stress in cats can be difficult to assess because every individual will have different
reactions to potential stressors and different perceptions of what is considered stress-
ful (Casey and Bradshaw, 2007). Acute stress can be easier to identify than chronic