Companion animal knowledge, attachment and pet cat care and their associations with household demographics for residents of a rural Texas town

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Abstract

This cross-sectional telephone survey explored companion animal attachment and knowledge as well as cat care of residents in a small Texas town. The survey included 441 residents of randomly selected households (55% response rate). Dogs were owned by 48% of households and cats by 29%. Companion animal ownership was associated with being 25–44 years old, being Anglo, having an income over $85,000/year, and feeding unowned cats. More knowledge about animals was associated with being any age except 45–54 years old and with completing college or an advanced degree. Higher attachment was associated with being a woman and having no children in the household. Attachment and knowledge were not related to ethnicity. Cats were likely to be sterilized if they had been owned more than 2 years and had been rabies vaccinated. Outside-only cats were used to control vermin (“mousers”) and were less likely to have visited a veterinarian. Cats with identification were likely to be from a shelter, frequently have visited the veterinarian, and been vaccinated against rabies. There are many companion animal owners who still do not have basic knowledge to prevent accidental litters or provide basic health care. Attachment scores for companion animal owners were similar to those previously reported and similar for cat and dog owners. A pattern of better care emerges for owners who view their cats as companions.

Introduction

Companion animals are owned by about 66% of the households in the United States (American Veterinary Medical Association, 2007). The numbers of owned cats have been increasing since the mid-1990s. The numbers of free-roaming dogs and cats in the US are a reflection of owned companion animals allowed to roam, companion animals that are abandoned or lost and reproduction within existing unowned animal populations (feral dogs and cats). A substantial number of these free-roaming dogs and cats will find their way into local animal shelters, if they survive automobiles, predation, starvation, and disease (Slater, 2004). Animal shelters already house large numbers of dogs and cats and despite progress in recent decades in decreasing euthanasia in shelters, millions of dogs and cats will be euthanized this year (Humane Society of the United States, 2008).

Understanding owners’ relationships to companion animals – as well as how they are kept and cared for – can be used to develop education methods to decrease the numbers of free-roaming companion animals. Educated companion animal owners may be less likely to resort to actions such as abandonment or relinquishing their animals to a shelter. Prevention of these actions would have a substantial impact on pet overpopulation.

Studies that examine the demographics of companion animal owners have been conducted and, in some cases, have provided yearly companion animal owner data at the national level (APPMA, 2005, U.S., 2007). Additional companion animal owner information, including the level of basic biology and behavior knowledge and attachment to the companion animal has also been examined (Salman et al., 1998, Zasloff, 1996). However, variability at the regional or local level in ownership and companion animal care is not well understood. In addition, existing studies have not used multivariable modeling methods to determine how several factors may be related to an outcome of interest.

This study is part of a larger project designed to better understand the population dynamics of free-roaming dogs and, in particular cats, with the overarching goal to pilot an approach for other communities (Schmidt et al., 2007a, Schmidt et al., 2007b, Ramón et al., 2008). The specific objectives of the study reported here were to determine: (1) household information that was associated with knowledge of or attachment to companion animals and (2) whether basic cat demographics, reproduction, and care in this setting were associated with an owned cat being sterilized, being kept only outdoors or having any type of identification.

Section snippets

Study site and study population

A small rural community near Texas A&M University was chosen for this study. We were interested in baseline data in a community where a general lack of action existed with regard to companion animal population control. There was one part-time animal control officer and no animal shelter in the city. Animal control methods focused on euthanasia of problem animals, with occasional adoption of dogs and cats through the local veterinary hospital. A reliability study of the questionnaire was also

Response rates

The study population consisted of the 441 people who completed the telephone survey. There were an additional 27 people who only partially completed the telephone survey, 333 people who declined to participate, and seven people who were unable to complete the survey due to physical or mental inability. There were 13 people who could not be reached. Among those that were not eligible to take part in the survey, 44 did not speak English. The overall response rate was 55% (441/808) among HH that

Response rates

The response rate for a randomly selected HH telephone survey was good, likely because of the awareness of Texans about Texas A&M University. However, the number of people declining (333) to participate in the interview was higher than expected. People who declined to participate may have been called at inopportune times or felt that the subject was not important to them. The 27 people who only partially completed the survey may have been more likely to complete the questionnaire if it had been

Conclusions

Many of the variables in this study were associated with one another. Since this was a cross-sectional study, there are no data on sequence of events relating to events such as sterilization, vaccination and veterinary visit. This makes selection of variables based on specific criteria difficult. The results of this study will inform future longitudinal epidemiological studies as well as social and psychological studies to better understand the relationships among the cat and owner variables

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by the National Council for Pet Population Study and Policy. The authors thank Dr. Roel Lopez for his suggestions and Paige Schmidt for her fieldwork. We also gratefully acknowledge the respondents for their participation and the interviewers at PPRI for their efforts.

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1

Current address: Houston Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Epidemiology, 8000 N. Stadium Drive, Houston, TX 77054, USA.

2

Current address: Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Private Mail Bag 3, Camden N.S.W. 2570, Australia.

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