Surrenderers’ Relationships with Cats Admitted to Four Australian Animal Shelters

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The surrender of cats to animal shelters results in financial, social and moral burdens for the community. Human caretaking of cats was explored in a sample of people surrendering cats to shelters in Australia. At the shelters surrenderers classified themselves as owners or non-owners and a questionnaire identified that this was related to their method of acquisition of the cat, their association time with the cat, the closeness of their relationship with the cat and their degree of responsibility for the cat’s care. A model of ownership perception was developed to provide a better understanding of factors influencing ownership perception. Understanding ownership perceptions in cats surrendered to shelters is important as these can inform the development of more targeted and effective intervention strategies to reduce numbers of unwanted cats. ABSTRACT: The surrender of cats to animal shelters results in financial, social and moral burdens for the community. Correlations of caretaking and interactions with surrendered cats were calculated, to understand more about humans’ relationships with surrendered cats and the contribution of semi-owned cats to shelter intakes. A questionnaire was used to collect detailed information about 100 surrenderers’ relationships with cats they surrendered to four animal shelters in Australia, with each surrenderer classifying themselves as being either the owner or a non-owner of the surrendered cat (ownership perception). Method of acquisition of the cat, association time, closeness of the relationship with the cat and degree of responsibility for the cat’s care were all associated with ownership perception. Many non-owners (59%) fed and interacted with the cat they surrendered but rarely displayed other caretaking behaviours. However, most surrenderers of owned and unowned cats were attached to and felt responsible for the cat. Based on these results and other evidence, a causal model of ownership perception was proposed to provide a better understanding of factors influencing ownership perception. This model consisted of a set of variables proposed as directly or indirectly influencing ownership perception, with connecting arrows to indicate proposed causal relationships. Understanding ownership perception and the contribution of semi-owned cats to shelter intake is important as these can inform the development of more targeted and effective intervention strategies to reduce numbers of unwanted cats.