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Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic

Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the lives of pet animals. We aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the welfare of pet cats across countries, as well as the owners’ experience in relation to their cat(s). An online survey containing 21 questions was distributed i...

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Autores principales: Jezierski, Tadeusz, Camerlink, Irene, Peden, Rachel S. E., Chou, Jen-Yun, Sztandarski, Patryk, Marchewka, Joanna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8528273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34669699
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257671
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author Jezierski, Tadeusz
Camerlink, Irene
Peden, Rachel S. E.
Chou, Jen-Yun
Sztandarski, Patryk
Marchewka, Joanna
author_facet Jezierski, Tadeusz
Camerlink, Irene
Peden, Rachel S. E.
Chou, Jen-Yun
Sztandarski, Patryk
Marchewka, Joanna
author_sort Jezierski, Tadeusz
collection PubMed
description Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the lives of pet animals. We aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the welfare of pet cats across countries, as well as the owners’ experience in relation to their cat(s). An online survey containing 21 questions was distributed internationally. Questions were related to information about the cat and its behaviour and health, changes in the household due to the pandemic, and how the owner related to the cat. The survey was completed by 324 respondents from 25 different countries. The survey showed that keeping pet cats during the COVID-19 pandemic did not create problems for the owners, except some difficulties in acquiring veterinary care. The majority (67.3%) of respondents reported no changes in their cats’ behaviour. When behavioural changes were reported, they were mostly of a positive nature. Owners who took more measures in relation to the cat to prevent the spread of the virus, e.g., reduced contact, were 1.8 times more likely to report changes in the behaviour of their cats but also 3.8 times more likely to report difficulties related to the care of the cat during the pandemic. Two-third of the respondents indicated a reduction of their own psychological tensions due to having a cat during the pandemic. We concluded that the welfare of pet cats, as reported by the owners, was not adversely affected by the pandemic and the human-cat interaction had positive effects on the owners during the lockdown.
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spelling pubmed-85282732021-10-21 Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic Jezierski, Tadeusz Camerlink, Irene Peden, Rachel S. E. Chou, Jen-Yun Sztandarski, Patryk Marchewka, Joanna PLoS One Research Article Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the lives of pet animals. We aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the welfare of pet cats across countries, as well as the owners’ experience in relation to their cat(s). An online survey containing 21 questions was distributed internationally. Questions were related to information about the cat and its behaviour and health, changes in the household due to the pandemic, and how the owner related to the cat. The survey was completed by 324 respondents from 25 different countries. The survey showed that keeping pet cats during the COVID-19 pandemic did not create problems for the owners, except some difficulties in acquiring veterinary care. The majority (67.3%) of respondents reported no changes in their cats’ behaviour. When behavioural changes were reported, they were mostly of a positive nature. Owners who took more measures in relation to the cat to prevent the spread of the virus, e.g., reduced contact, were 1.8 times more likely to report changes in the behaviour of their cats but also 3.8 times more likely to report difficulties related to the care of the cat during the pandemic. Two-third of the respondents indicated a reduction of their own psychological tensions due to having a cat during the pandemic. We concluded that the welfare of pet cats, as reported by the owners, was not adversely affected by the pandemic and the human-cat interaction had positive effects on the owners during the lockdown. Public Library of Science 2021-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8528273/ /pubmed/34669699 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257671 Text en © 2021 Jezierski et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Jezierski, Tadeusz
Camerlink, Irene
Peden, Rachel S. E.
Chou, Jen-Yun
Sztandarski, Patryk
Marchewka, Joanna
Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort cat owners’ perception on having a pet cat during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8528273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34669699
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257671
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