We love our cats, but sometimes they can be hard to live with. House soiling, aggression and destructive behaviour make it a challenge to have certain cats in your home. Why do they do these things?
It’s a huge area of current study, and also a difficult area to approach.
We can’t do experiments on cats to predict how they may act in a home because it’s not ethical, and because the results might not be helpful.
What’s the next best thing?
Behaviour surveys can be very helpful, but researchers need a large number of results in order to draw conclusions and help cats.
Consider spending a bit of time helping the University of Pennsylvania help cats by taking the FeBARQ questionnaire. The questionnaire is open to cat owners, and will give you some feedback at the end. It takes about 15 minutes.