Cat ownership in Australia: Barriers to ownership and behavior

Introduction 

Since 1988 Australia has experienced a declining pet cat population and appears to be experiencing a slowing of growth, possibly in advance of a decline, in the pet dog population, also (Baldock 2004, Baldock et al 2003). A similar situation is thought to be developing in the UK (British Petfood Manufacturers annual survey). In contrast, pet population growth in the USA averages 13% a year, which is in excess of US human population growth (AVMA / American Veterinary Medical Association 2002, Baldock et al 2003, Baldock 2004).

The survey of Australian cat ownership reported in this paper was done in response to a suggestion by an Australian epidemiologist that pet cat numbers were in decline in Australia—from 3.2 million in 1988 to 2.4 million at present—as a result of an excessively high rate of neutering (Baldock et al 2003, Baldock 2004). The mechanism proposed suggests that with a spay rate of 93%, intact females cannot come in contact with sufficient numbers of intact males to procreate, thereby limiting the number of kittens available for adoption. Accordingly, some people who wished to adopt a pet cat would be unable to do so. Associated with this lack of kittens, it has been proposed that 70% of pet cats are acquired “serendipitously,” representing latent demand or passive acquisition, such that the people involved were not actively seeking to adopt cats, but once acquired they kept the cat (Baldock et al 2003, Baldock 2004).

We also tried to examine the prevalence of postulated behavior problems such as aggression and house soiling, in the context of attempting to identify possible barriers to ownership (Patronek et al 1996, Serpell 1996, New et al 2004). Studies on the prevalence of behavior problems of cats largely focus on owners who bring their cats to behavior specialists and university hospitals (Beaver, 2003). Such studies may well represent a subset of animals and owners, but as yet, there is still no large body of data that has been systematically collected, nor are there data on the frequency of perceived behavioral concerns for which owners do not seek the help of specialists.

There have been a few ethological studies of pet cats under current ownership parameters (Barry and Crowell-Davis 1999, Crowell-Davis et al 2004, FAB Felix Report 2004, Knowles et al 2004, Renesse 2005, Buffington et al 2006) that examine various problems such as aggression and inappropriate elimination. There have also been multicat household studies that compare confined cat (Bernstein and Strack 1996, Barry and Crowell-Davis 1999) with feral cat behavior (Mendl and Harcourt, 2000), and studies of colonies of laboratory cats, particularly the psychological and neuroanatomical studies in the middle of last century (Leyhausen 1956, Bradshaw and Hall 1999, Rochlitz 1999). Relatively little research has been done on cat behavior within a human household, where the cats are considered by the owners to be behaving normally. When these studies are done, the owner is often not present (Knowles et al., 2004).

Surveys indicate that owners perceive the cat as being a family member (Wise et al., 2002), but that although owner attachment to cats is not related to specific behaviors of the cat (Serpell, 1996), relinquishment is often related to problems including overactivity, biting, or house soiling (Patronek et al 1996, New et al 2004). In fact, house soiling is the most common reason cats are referred to veterinary behaviorists, followed by complaints involving aggression (Beaver, 2003). In this light, it may be anticipated that solo indoor cats would have a higher incidence of biting their owners than cats in multicat households, which have inherently more environmental variety and other victims to bite.

Accordingly, we focused on 3 main areas of interest:

Results 

One hundred eighty-one households replied to the survey. Nearly all respondents (174, or 96%) were women (which is similar to the ratio of women clients at the East Chatswood Cat Clinic), with two peak age groups of respondents: 25 to 35 years old and > 45 years. Like the Australian average, 109 (60%) of respondents owned their own home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005). Thirty percent (54) of respondents had children living at home; over half the households owned more than one cat; and 54 (30%) had other pets, mostly dogs and birds. Most (118, or 65%) households reported obtaining their cats as young kittens, 15 (8%) of households acquired their cats as adults, and the remainder had acquired their pets as young adults (3 to 6 months old).

The cats were identified by the owner by color and breed. In total, 343 cats were identified in the survey. Thirty percent (106) were purebred and the remainder were random-bred or crossbred. This finding approximates the 38% purebred, 62% random-bred proportion of cats attending the East Chatswood Cat Clinic. Thirty-nine households (22%) owned female cats only, 62 (34%) owned males only, and the remainder owned both sexes.

Of the 23 owners owning breeding females, 8 (12.8%) were breeders of purebred cats and had no difficulties placing their purebred kittens. Of the owners of random-bred cats, 3 owners kept the kittens themselves, 6 had difficulty finding homes, and 4 used welfare agencies to home their kittens. Only 2 nonbreeders found it easy to find homes for nonpurebred cats. Only 4, or 2% of cat owners, reported difficulties finding a kitten. Half of these had trouble because it was not kitten season; the others wanted a particular breed or type.

Four barriers to cat ownership were investigated. These were (1) financial constraints, (2) accommodation problems, (3) holiday care, and (4) emotional restraints. All of these factors were found to affect cat ownership and were found to be interrelated.

Of the owners reporting difficulties, 37 out of 177 (20.9%) owners had difficulties with the financial cost associated with ownership in general. Of these, 24 out of 37 (65%) additionally reported difficulties with holiday costs of housing the cat during holidays.

As expected, homeowners reported no accommodation problems with owning cats. However, of the 72 respondents who were renting, 29 (40%) reported experiencing problems with finding pet-friendly accommodation, because in Australia, apartment blocks are increasingly legislating against the keeping of pets.

Over one third of owners (71, or 39.5%) reported difficulties with finding cat care during holidays or vacations, citing either financial cost or emotional disturbance such as worrying about the cat’s well-being or medical needs during their absence as their main concerns.

Another area of difficulty that was highlighted involved owners who worked long hours. This was a concern for 33 (18.6%) of respondents, and 11 of these individuals also had difficulties with holidays.

Only a few respondents (9, or 0.5%) reported their emotional attachment to their cats made cat ownership difficult, indicating personal difficulties with leaving their cats in another’s care.

It is interesting that 80% of owners who were given a cat by friends, especially a mature cat, stated that they had had difficulties with holidays. In general, holiday arrangement problems were cited by 72 (40%) of owners across all age and housing groups, with slightly more problems reported by renters aged between 35 and 45 years.

With respect to cat ownership choices, 63 (35%) of current cat owners got their current cat because they’d always had one. Interestingly, about one third of the time the cat was passively acquired. Respondents who reported they had “no preparation for getting a cat” or those who “had always had a cat” were considered to have passively acquired their cat. This level of passive acquisition is very low compared to the aforementioned statistic that, in the past, 70% of cats, in general, were passively acquired (Baldock et al., 2003). Active reasons for cat ownership included speaking with breeders, vets, and friends, attending cat shows, and researching in books or the Internet. The data showed a trend between random-bred and purebred cats for passive versus active acquisition (chi square = 5.521, df = 1, P = 0.055). Owners tended to be more active about acquiring a particular purebred, whereas owners of mixed-breed cats seemed more likely to acquire a cat “serendipitously,” and to find that a cat “just happened along.”

We identified 343 cats belonging to 181 owners for whom information was reported on behavior. In this group, the average number of cats per household was 1.9, whereas the Australian national average is 1.5 cats per household (Baldock et al., 2003). Forty percent (72) of the households were solo cat households. Forty-four percent (80) of households kept the cats completely indoors, only 2 households (1%) kept cats outdoors only, and the remainder had varying levels of indoor and outdoor access.

Comparison of cat breed and owner-reported temperament found no significant difference between purebred cats and random-bred cats when the P value is reduced to 0.025 using the Bonferroni correction (chi square = 6.02, df = 2, P = 0.046) (Table 1). When cat coat pattern was compared with owner ratings of cat temperament among the random-bred cats, particolored cats (cats identified as a color “and white”), using the reduced P value, were considered significant to 0.02, but no significant difference was found between the cats of different coat patterns (chi square = 10.22, df = 4, P = 0.04). That said, the Bonferroni correction has been shown to be overly conservative (Nakagawa, 2004), suggesting that these patterns may be important and that they deserve further examination.

Table 1. Effect of breed and coat pattern on temperament rating

		Temperament rating
		1 (n = 105)	2 (n = 55)	3 (n = 181)
	Cat Breed
	Purebred	24	17	67
	Random-bred	81	38	114
		χ2 = 6.02	P = 0.046
	Coat Pattern
	Solid coat	13	13	16
	Tortoiseshell/tabby	34	12	48
	Particolor	33	10	49
		χ2 = 10.22	P = 0.037

P < 0.025

It was not possible to correlate aggressive and toileting behaviors with individual cats except in single-cat households, because the questions were about the population of cats in the household. For example, questions about aggression were phrased, “Does any cat bite people?”

Litter tray number per cat was not found to affect urination (chi square = 6.74, df = 3, P = 0.08) or defecation (chi square = 3.21, df = 3, P = 0.36) outside of the tray. The data were reported for cats that had unrestricted outdoor access, so these cats may choose not to use a tray on a regular basis. The number of cats in the household was not predictive of urination (chi square = 3.03, df = 2, P = 0.22) or defecation (chi square = 2.47, df = 2, p = 0.29) outside of the litter tray (Table 2).

Table 2. Effect of the number of litter trays and multiple cats on the presence of housesoiling (urination and defecation)

		Urination		Defecation
		Yes (n = 68)	No (n = 85)	Yes (n = 52)	No (n = 100)
	Number of Litter Trays
	<1	17	15	12	20
	1	38	62	32	67
	2	3	5	2	8
	3	8	3	6	5
		χ2 = 6.74	P = 0.080	χ2 = 3.21	P = 0.360
	Multiple Cats	(n = 71)	(n = 98)	(n = 53)	(n = 113)
	1	22	42	16	48
	2	34	35	23	43
	>2	15	21	14	22
		χ2 = 3.03	P = 0.220	χ2 = 2.47	P = 0.290

P < 0.0125

Of solo cat households, 66% (48/72) have a cat that bites. Significantly fewer bites to humans are reported in multicat (>2 cat) households (chi square = , df = 2, P = 0.0102). Cats observed to bite other cats were significantly more likely to bite humans, even with a reduced significant P value of .016 (chi square = 10.94, df = 1, P = 0.009). Cats who were observed to stare at humans were more likely to bite people (chi square = 12.05, df = 3, P = 0.007). Cats observed to stare at other cats were found to be more likely to bite cats (chi square = 25.97, df = 6, P = 0.0005). The questions we asked did not allow for separation of different types of bites such as play bites or more serious bites, so these different types were grouped together for the purposes of noting broad patterns.

Discussion 

This research was conducted to help characterize Australian cat ownership and to learn if there were problems with the supply of pet cats. The way Australians acquire cats and problems that human beings have with ownership were also identified, including those related to feline aggression and elimination problems. Cat owners were solicited via the Internet and a Sydney cat shelter, and they were invited to complete the questionnaire via the Internet or in person.

Very little is known about cat ownership in Australia. Although it is possible to find a national average for cats per household (Baldock et al., 2003), it is not known if the percentage of multicat households in this survey is representative of cat-owning households. The demographic data from this survey agrees with other published information about cat owners, in that cat owners tend to be female (Wise, et al., 2002; Heathcott and Shepherd, 2003; Wise, 2003), and approximately 30% have other pets (personal communication, Tim Adams, Petcare Information and Advisory Service Australia).

The results of this study suggest that the decline in the pet cat population in Australia is not caused by an undersupply of cats associated with high rates of neutering pet cats. Rather, the decline in cat ownership may be the result of changing demographics, especially the increase in single-person households across the relevant human age ranges (Baldock et al., 2003), the current cultural mix and potentially differing attitudes to the concept of pet ownership (Margawani and Robertson 1995, Hood 1998, Harwell 2000 2001), and the effects of a maturing pet industry. The veterinary industry, and indeed the whole pet industry in Australia, is gearing for a major change in service supply as the numbers of traditional pets, both cats and dogs, declines (Baldock et al., 2003). In contrast, fish and reptiles are on the ascent (Petcare Information and Advisory Service Australia).

The first question addressed was whether there was an unmet demand or an excess of supply of pet cats. We assessed the difficulty of acquiring a cat and the difficulty of finding homes for kittens. The results of this study show respondents had no difficulty acquiring a cat or kitten during the summer kitten season, even if the acquisition was delayed because of specific breed, color, or type restrictions demanded by the owner. Passive demand for cats is probably undersupplied, as unwanted cats tend to be channeled through welfare agencies rather than by placement with neighbors, friends, or school acquaintances after an unexpected litter is produced. Welfare agencies are not always centrally located to the potential pet-owning population, so an active effort for acquisition of a pet cat is often required. Because very few respondents reported problems with acquiring a cat, the results of this survey agree with the general picture: excess cats in shelters are kittens and young cats during the kitten and breeding season. Although there is a high demand for kittens during the nonbreeding or winter season, this demand is quickly satisfied with the arrival of the first kittens every spring, and this situation leads to the surplus experienced at welfare centers. As most welfare-supplied kittens are now neutered before placement, it follows that unexpected litters of kittens are less common in many areas. There may be significant cultural elements to cat ownership, kitten production, and placement (Harwell 2000 2001, Hood 1998, Margawani and Robertson 1995), which may be the source of the surplus. These issues have not yet been defined or examined in detail.

Cat ownership is enjoyed by many Australians; however, it is not without its detractions. The major difficulties reported by owners involved the practical aspects of housing and maintaining a pet cat in the Australian environment. The Australian population as a whole is quite mobile, moving house 11 times in an average lifetime (Australian Bureau of Statistics), and holiday oriented, because workers traditionally get one month of holidays each twelve months. Anecdotally, it appears that some people remain pet free because of the perceived cost and difficulties associated with pet care while the owners are absent on holiday. Although this is a laudably responsible attitude, it is restricting the number of homes available for pets. This may be an area that could to be creatively addressed with such concepts as “pet-sitting clubs” in order to encourage people to have pets in general, and cats in particular, for the 330 days a year that they are not on holiday.

Finding a rental property as a cat owner appears difficult in Australia. The most common reported difficulty was with body corporate laws in apartment blocks, or rental landlords of any type of housing, prohibiting pets, and it is a testament to devotion that the owners kept their cat and persisted in finding accommodation. Because many Australians are renters at some stage of their lives (Australian Bureau of Statistics), this issue needs addressing, as not only does it cause problems for cat owners, it restricts potential homes for cats and may even result in the surrender and destruction of individual cats.

The method of acquisition is also important in how difficult respondents found cat ownership. The owners who identified the greatest number of difficulties associated with pet ownership were those who had been given a cat, particularly a mature one, by friends or family. This method of acquisition, feline foisted upon friends, may engender a difficult relationship. It may be that the cats are adopted initially with a lack of planning or consideration of the costs, financial and otherwise, of cat ownership. Also, many owners experience major changes in their lives, especially being posted overseas, divorce, and other financial disruptions beyond their control, and when the situation of the first owner becomes untenable, they make a considerable effort to rehouse the cat. Although it is not the ideal method of acquisition of a pet, the owners of many of these “second-hand” feline companions are responsible in caring for their pet, and as the alternative to the arrangement is the death of the cat, it is a humane arrangement. Many of the welfare agencies in Australia are rehoming young adult cats, in an effort to reduce the wastage of these lives as well, and it is hoped that the education of owners prior to an older animal’s adoption will assist in this area in the same way as postadoption counseling is helping dog owners. More information is required to understand what happens to cats across their lifetimes and to understand reasons behind cat acquisition and rehoming.

Undesirable cat behavior is a major reason for cats being surrendered to animal shelters (New 2000, New et al 2004). However, our understanding of the behaviors cats display in the Australian home environment is limited, because there have been few ethological studies of pet cats under current ownership parameters. The current ownership trend is to keep a small number of neutered, often unrelated, cats indoors or in close proximity in an urban environment, with shared resources, and often high-intensity interaction with human and other feline or canine members of the household. Cats are being kept alone or in pairs in apartments, or in small numbers in houses on urban blocks. There is a much higher density of felines than would be experienced in feral cat situations, and the feline occupants of these households have much less choice about the company they keep, their migration opportunities, and even their hunting patterns. There have been multicat household studies to compare confined cat (Bernstein and Strack, 1996) with feral cat behavior (Mendl and Harcourt, 2000), and studies of colonies of laboratory cats—particularly psychological and neuroanatomical studies in the middle of the last century (Bradshaw and Hall 1999, Leyhausen 1956, Rochlitz 1999). However, there has been relatively little investigation of cat behavior in a human household, where the cats are considered by the owners to be behaving normally, interacting with the human as well as the feline and other species with which they cohabit (Bernstein and Strack, 1993; Heidenberger, 1997; Knowles et al., 2003; Renesse, 2005). Many surveys indicate that owners perceive the cat as being a family member (Wise et al 2002, Wise et al 2003). It has been suggested that owner attachment to their cats is not related to specific behaviors of the cat (Serpell, 1996), although studies have suggested relinquishment is related to overactivity and biting or house soiling (Patronek et al 1996, New 2000).

The rest of the current survey suffers from the deficiencies of all owner-reported surveys in that definitions and observations will vary between individuals, and the results need further investigation to see if they can be replicated (Ehrenlechner, 1994 [German], Diagnose und Therapie von Verhaltensproblemen der Hauskatze. Unpublished Dr. Med. Vet., Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; Harbison et al., 2002).

An interesting aspect of cat ownership is found in the beliefs held by many owners about different breeds and colors of cats. Anecdotally, different qualities are assigned to different types of cats. For example, Siamese cats are thought to be demanding, ginger cats, are thought of by many as “slow,” whereas tortoiseshell-colored cats are considered reactive and difficult to handle. Although there is limited evidence to support reliable associations between temperament and coat patterns in cats and other species (Trut 1999, Takeuchi and Houpt 2003, FAB Felix Report 2004), this concept has not been extensively tested except in the UK, where 1800 owners answered a detailed survey (FAB Felix Report, 2004). Although our study (Table 1) found no relationship between coat pattern in random-bred cats, it is possible that there may be a stable relationship between coat pattern and temperament (Todd 1977, FAB Felix Report 2004). These patterns may vary between cat populations on different continents, notwithstanding the very significant effects of socialization on final personality (McCune 1992, FAB Felix Report 2004). It was interesting that no significant difference was found between the temperament ratings of purebred cats, because cat breeders are able to breed for “friendly” cats. This finding is not consistent with the UK Report (FAB Felix Report, 2004), which found very significant breed differences. It is possible that the temperament rating used in the present study was not sensitive enough to differentiate temperament differences in the domestic cat, or it may be that the effects of socialization in the year after birth overrides the genetic influences. Certainly, this is one area that requires further investigation.

Feline house soiling is the most common reason cat owners seek help from veterinary behaviorists (Olm and Houpt 1988, Osborne 1989, Horwitz 1997, Horwitz 2002, Beaver 2003, FAB Felix Report 2004, Landsberg et al 2004). Surveys of feline house soiling have found that many cats suffer from concurrent disease that may affect either ability to use litter trays or their association with the litter tray (Horwitz 2002, Landsberg et al 2004). For example, cystitis is a painful problem found in many house-soiling cats (Olm and Houpt 1988, Osborne 1989, Horwitz 2002, Buffington et al 2006). Other environmental factors such as temperament, the social environment, and litter tray substrate and management may also affect feline elimination patterns (Horwitz 2002, Buffington et al 2006). In several studies (Horwitz 1997, FAB Felix Report 2004), males have been found to be more likely than females to spray.

In this survey, half of the cats who are kept indoors, only, have to share their litter trays, the same as reported in a German study (Heidenberger, 1997). The German study also reported that 60% of cat owners cleaned the trays more than once a day. Cat owners in an American study of feline inappropriate elimination reported cleaning the litter anywhere from daily to once every 30 days (Horwitz, 1997). The present study, however, did not identify frequency of cleaning, so this cannot be forgotten as a possible factor in determining whether cats eliminate outside the litter tray (Horwitz 2002, Neilson 2004, Buffington et al 2006). We are constructing a follow-up survey that will more fully explore the question of cleaning frequency.

Table 2 shows that the results from this survey suggest that house soiling is unaffected by the number of litter trays provided per cat or the substrate used, the number of cats in the household, or whether the cats have access to the outdoors. These results are at significant variance to many publications (Horwitz 2002, Landsberg et al 2004), but other studies are in agreement with our findings (Renesse 2005, Buffington et al 2006). It may be possible to explain our findings as a picture of the wider, less–tray-fastidious cat population, whose failure to use the tray is related to social and other stresses (eg, moving house, home invasions by other cats, medical problems or incontinence). The cats that eliminate outside their trays may belong to several subgroups that are seldom differentiated.

There is increasing evidence that some cats are more inclined to develop medical problems in stressful environments (Buffington et al., 2006). Owners are not easily able to discern if toileting difficulties are a result of a medical problem (Ehrenlechner, 1994 [German], Diagnose und Therapie von Verhaltensproblemen der Hauskatze. Unpublished Dr. Med. Vet., Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; Harbison et al., 2002). Because there is a substantial overlap between medical and behavioral components, this finding is not unexpected.

It also may not matter how many trays there are if the urination or defecation is primarily the result of pheromonal placement or olfactory concerns rather than solely voiding waste. Few owners are able to identify with certainty whether a patch of urine has been placed as a social comment by spraying or marking. Hence, consideration of the importance of olfaction and pheromones may be more important than realized.

The other problem behavior we investigated was aggression directed at people and other cats (Table 3, Table 4). Our questionnaire did not specify whether the bite drew blood. Accordingly, a conservative interpretation is warranted. Some owners added comments to the effect that the cat only bit when being medicated, or during rough play and without injuring the owner. Unfortunately, these were only comments made in the margins of the survey and were not in sufficient numbers to be analyzed. This issue will be more discreetly pursued in the future. However, it was anticipated that the results would indicate that indoor, especially solo cats would be more likely to bite because of stresses associated with living in a less-stimulating social environment than did cats with access to the outdoors or to another feline cohabitant. It was also anticipated that solo indoor cats would have a higher incidence of biting their owners than would cats in multicat households, which have inherently more environmental variety and other victims to bite.

Table 3. Feline aggression and the effect of cat numbers and victims of aggression

	Cat Numbers	Bites Reported (n = 93)	No Bites Reported (n = 83)
	1	46	23
	2	32	37
	>2	15	23
		χ2 = 9.17	P = 0.0102
		People Bitten (n = 72)	People Not Bitten (n = 105)
	Aggressor bites cats	31	21
		χ2 = 10.94	P = 0.0009

P < 0.0125

Table 4. Aggressive behavior and staring behavior

	Staring Behavior	People Bitten (n = 39)	Cats Bitten (n = 20)	Both Cats and People Bitten (n = 30)	No Bites (n = 75)
	Stares at People	13	3	9	17
		χ2 = 12.05	P = 0.0072
		n = 21	n = 18	n = 24	n = 63
	Stares at Cats	9	12	15	18
		χ2 = 25.97	P = 0.0005

P < 0.0125

Our results (Table 4) indicate that most people reported that their cats did not bite. Biting owners is considered an uncommon behavior problem in the general cat population (Hart and Hart, 1985). Of those cats that do bite, most of them bite people, and few bite cats only. Bites to other cats may be underreported, because most intercat interactions are not witnessed by owners, although owners of victim cats who get abscesses repeatedly will be aware of the results. These results may indicate that resorting to biting is a stable personality trait that may be subject to genetic selection. This indication would be consistent with the finding that declawed cats are no more likely to bite their owners after the surgery than before and are, in fact, no more likely to bite at all than their clawed counterparts (Morgan and Houpt, 1989).

We examined feline warning signals by examining staring (Table 4). Are cats that bite people more likely to stare at people? The results indicate that cats who stare at cats bite cats but do not tend to bite people. Cats who do not stare at anyone tend not to bite anyone. Cats that are reported to bite cats and people tend to stare at people. Cats who are reported to not bite are not reported to stare at people. The inference is that cats are warning people and other cats of their intention. The pattern we found suggests cats are staring at their victims and following their threat of aggression with a bite. Thus, cats are providing socially meaningful cues for owners, of which owners can be made aware.

Cats that do not stare at people still bite them at a higher rate than expected by chance alone. There are 3 possibilities to explain this observation. The reasons that cats stare may differ from their reasons for biting. The owners may be impaired in their ability to perceive a threat from the cat, so they do not report staring as a behavior of their cat. Although both experienced and inexperienced cat owners can reasonably and reliably identify “stress” in a cat (Bahlig-Poeren and Turner, 1999), the stare may be misinterpreted. Other reviews (Lindell et al 1997, Landsberg et al 2004) have indicated that many owners are less adept at perceiving intercat aggression signals than cat-to-person threats. These owners may not have learned the more subtle body language indicators of impending aggression either to people or to other cats. The third possible interpretation is that many bites are the result of predatory play rather than of aggression, and so they would not be preceded by a stare (Crowell-Davis 2002, Beaver 2004). Clearly, this is a subject worthy of further research.

Conclusion 

This survey is a first step in understanding cat ownership in Australia. As with most surveys, more questions arise from the information gathered, and no survey is ever complete. This study has identified areas requiring further investigation. The ecology of many cats has changed definitively from the ones studied in the last century. The more intimate relationships and proximity in coexisting for both felines and people means many cats are having to adapt rapidly. Definitions of the minimums of the social components of feline life—such as companionship versus isolation, vertical versus horizontal space, toilet preferences, and dietary choices—in the current human family structure are needed. Cats seen by veterinarians and behaviorists are not from free-ranging colonies, but from tightly organized groupings, and the changing needs of these cats, as defined by their owners as well as their veterinary attendants, need to be addressed for the cats’ emotional and physical well-being. In addition, deeper consideration should be given to the issue of temperament and coat color, especially given popularly held beliefs.

In summary, it would seem that cat ownership in Australia is not declining because of a lack of cats, but possibly because of difficulty in obtaining suitable housing, and because of financial concerns. More investigation into the social and cultural factors affecting cat ownership, cat acquisition, and kitten production is required. A much larger and detailed replication of this survey is currently underway, which will add more to the picture of Australian cat ownership.