A novel approach to welfare interventions in problem multi-cat households

Hill, Kayleigh; Yates, David; Dean, Rachel; Stavisky, Jenny

Abstract

Background
Thousands of injured, stray and relinquished cats are received at the RSPCA Greater Manchester Animal Hospital each year. A significant and challenging proportion of these cats are confiscated from multicat households by RSPCA Inspectors, due to the owners’ inability to care for them. These households share many characteristics of animal hoarding, including poor owner compliance with suggested welfare improvements and recidivism. The relatively poor adoption potential of animals from such households are a perennial problem for the charity.

The aim of this study was to determine if offering female cat neutering assistance to multi-cat owners significantly improved colony welfare.

Results
Ten multicat households with a history of public complaint to the RSPCA were recruited. An RSPCA veterinary surgeon (VS) initially assessed the overall welfare of each household’s cat population, individual cat welfare and the living environment. All entire female cats aged over 8 weeks were neutered and basic animal care education provided. Follow up visits were completed two and 12 months later to reassess welfare parameters and population numbers.

The total number of cats was 176 across ten households (range 7–33, median 16). All owners consented to having all entire female cats spayed. At the first visit, mean individual cat welfare scores ranged from 5.4–8.7/ 16 across the 10 households, where 16 represented best possible welfare.

Overall household mean welfare scores were significantly improved at both the 2 month and 12 month revisits (p = 0.011 and p = 0.01 respectively) when compared to the initial visits. By the end of the study period, three out of the ten households had voluntarily relinquished all of their cats, and overall there was a 40% reduction in the number of cats.

Conclusions
Animal hoarding has previously been an intractable welfare concern with little evidence informing intervention techniques. These results show that positive veterinary engagement on site, focused on preventative care and population control, can yield significant improvement in welfare scoring systems in relatively short timescales. Promptly collecting and neutering all female cats at a site, combined with advice and support, show promise in improving welfare.

Citation

Hill, K., Yates, D., Dean, R., & Stavisky, J. (2019). A novel approach to welfare interventions in problem multi-cat households. BMC Veterinary Research, 15, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-019-2183-3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 20, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 3, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Deposit Date: Jan 15, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 15, 2020
• Journal: BMC Veterinary Research
• Electronic ISSN: 1746-6148
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Article Number: 434
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-019-2183-3
• Keywords: Animal hoarding, Cats, Veterinary hoarding interventions, Neutering, Feline welfare, Preventative,
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3611588
• Publisher URL: https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-019-2183-3
• Additional Information: Received: 6 March 2019; Accepted: 20 November 2019; First Online: 3 December 2019; : This project was approved by the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science ethical review panel, with a reference of #1574 151014. All owners gave written written consent for participation, data collection, publication of data and, where relevant, euthanasia of cats.; : All individual owners consented to publication of the data gathered and signed consent forms to confirm this.; : The authors declare that they have no competing interests.