A Michael Broad Blog
We hear a lot about socialising feral cats; turning them into domestic cats. I did it myself. I can write about this with the advantage of personal experience. It’s quite an important topic because there are many stray and feral cats that can and should be brought into the home as pets. My story …
Do cats need to socialise with other cats in order to be happy and healthy? What the question is asking is whether a domestic cat needs to successfully live with another domestic cat in a good relationship in order to be happy and healthy. And the answer is no because there are many millions …
Cats living with a cat hoarder are almost invariably neglected. They are often only partly socialised, stressed and unhealthy. After rescue, a substantial percentage of them do not take well to a rescue facility. It may be so bad for them that they stop eating and toileting. They are essentially unadoptable because they’re so …
The question is asked by Carol Chapell on the Internet. She actually answers the question herself. In this instance, a kitten’s mother was tragically killed in a road traffic accident. The 10-day-old kitten came up to Carol screaming at the top of her voice. It was a demand to be adopted. I love that …
As I see it, this is a test to assess the degree of socialisation of a domestic cat. I am working backwards from a study on the socialisation of kittens. The researchers handled kittens at various stages of their young lives. They handled some for the first time from: 3 weeks old; 7 weeks …
All the discussions we have about domestic cat socialisation concerns socialisation to humans. Little is known about the important time for kitten-to-kitten socialisation. I try and address the topic generally here. During the first two weeks kittens form an attachment to their mother. It is based on smell (olfaction). During the first four weeks …
To be effective cat socialisation to people must start within the first six or seven weeks. Once started it continues for several weeks. A study by Dr Bradshaw confirms the above. In the 1990s Dr Bradshaw worked with the UK charity Cats Protection in order to study the age at which the socialisation of …
Dr John Bradshaw, PhD, the well-known cat behaviour expert at the University of Bristol, UK, says that with respect to the feline grandparents of domestic cats, most cats will never meet them and therefore they will never remember them. That is a good start! Dr Bradshaw goes a step further and says that: “once …
