Tomàs Camps

Stress in owned cats: behavioural changes and welfare implications:

Domestic cats are exposed to a variety of stressful stimuli, which may have a negative effect on the cats’ welfare and trigger a number of behavioural changes. Some of the stressors most commonly encountered by cats include changes in environment, inter-cat conflict, a poor human–cat relationship and the cat’s inability to perform highly motivated behaviour patterns. Stress is very likely to reduce feed intake, and stress-related anorexia may contribute to the development of potentially serious medical conditions. Stress also increases the risk of cats showing urine marking and some forms of aggression, including redirected aggression. A number of compulsive disorders such as over-grooming may also develop as a consequence of stressful environments. Some of the main strategies to prevent or reduce stress-related behavioural problems in cats are environmental enrichment, appropriate management techniques to introduce unfamiliar cats to each other and the use of the synthetic analogue of the feline facial pheromone. As the stress response in cats depends, to a large extent, on the temperament of the animal, breeding and husbandry strategies that contribute to the cat developing a well-balanced temperament are also very useful.

Separation anxiety in dogs: the implications of predictability and contextual fear for behavioural treatment

Separation anxiety (SA) is one of the most common canine behaviour problems and can have serious negative effects on dog welfare. Treatment of SA may include changing the environment around the dog, pharmacological treatment and behavioural therapy. The latter is considered the most important part of the treatment and is intended to habituate the dog to being alone and to reduce its dependence on the owner. The objective of this paper is to discuss two aspects of the treatment of SA that may be in contradiction with our current understanding of the stress response. Advice commonly given to owners of dogs with SA includes giving false departure cues to prevent the dog from anticipating the actual departure. Instead, we recommend increasing the predictability of the owner’s departure by maintaining the cues that signal it. Animals suffering from anxiety disorders are likely to develop contextual fear, ie to be frightened by merely being exposed to the same location where they have experienced an aversive event. As a consequence, we suggest that whenever possible, fake departures done as part of the habituation exercises to being left are done in a place different from that where the dog is actually left alone.

A case of spongiform polioencephalomyelopathy in a cat with a history of behavioural problems

A 7-month-old, entire female, domestic shorthair cat was referred to our behavioural service owing to soiling in the house and a play-related problem. The owners’ complaints were that the cat had never used the litter tray, and it did not know how to play. After reviewing the behavioural history, a problem of substrate preferences acquisition was suspected with regard to the elimination problem. During the consultation, the physical examination was unremarkable, but the neurological examination revealed a moderate and hypermetric ataxic gait, and a bilateral lack of menace response. Some degree of visual impairment was suspected. The problem was located in the central nervous system (CNS); specifically, an intracranial and multifocal problem was diagnosed. After a complete work-up (complete ophthalmological examination, complete blood count and a complete biochemistry panel, feline immunodeficiency virus/feline leukaemia virus test, thorax radiographs, abdominal ultrasound, brain magnetic resonance imaging [0.2 T], cerebrospinal fluid analysis and a urinary metabolic screen test), a degenerative CNS problem was suspected. No treatment was prescribed for the neurological problem. Regarding the problem of soiling in the house, reward-based training with a clicker was used, and the cat partially improved in a few weeks. Three months later, the cat was referred to the neurology service in status epilepticus. A symptomatic treatment was prescribed, with a mild response. After 2 years of treatment and a progressive worsening, the cat was euthanased. Necropsy revealed spongiform polioencephalomyelopathy. In order to rule out prion aetiology a PrPsc inmunohistochemistry assay was performed, and the results were negative. Congenital spongiform polioencephalomyelopathy (CSP) was diagnosed. We strongly suggest that the cat’s behavioural clinical signs were caused by the CSP, causing learning impairment. To the best of our knowledge, this would be the first case in which a congenital degenerative disease affected a cat’s capability to learn, leading to behavioural signs as the main complaint of the owners, even before neurological signs are detected by the owners.