Introducing a Controlled Outdoor Environment Impacts Positively in Cat Welfare and Owner Concerns: The Use of a New Feline Welfare Assessment Tool.

ABSTRACT: There is much debate over the pros and cons of allowing cats to roam freely as opposed to keeping them confined indoors. We surveyed owners who implemented a commercial physical containment system to the outdoors to evaluate their characteristics and the apparent impact of this system on cat welfare and owner perceptions. As part of the latter aim, we also developed a new feline welfare assessment tool based on the mathematical relationship between different measures. The survey was circulated to customers over the preceding 2 years of ProtectaPet® between May and June 2019 and gathered 446 responses. Univariate analyses compared changes following installation on factors such as the amount of time the cat spent outside, other cats entering the owner's garden and owners' concerns about thei

SUBMITTER: de Assis LS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7829302 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature