Читать книгу Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff - Группа авторов - Страница 66

Cats are obligate carnivores and have specific dietary requirements best met through animal‐based diets. Several essential compounds cannot be autosynthesized by cats and, therefore, must be obtained from the environment. Animal products contain sulfur‐rich amino acids (methionine, cysteine, taurine), vitamins (niacin and thiamine), essential fatty acids, and high‐protein content necessary for basic feline metabolic functions. Moreover, cats are limited in their ability to process plant‐derived foods (Zoran and Buffington 2011).

Cats can be picky eaters, developing a strong preference for only a few foods while refusing to eat others (Overall et al. 2005; Stasiak 2002). Food preference or aversion can be mitigated if food items with a variety of textures and flavors are presented to kittens at a young age. Cats may develop a learned aversion if a certain food becomes associated with nausea, force feeding, or medication administration (Stasiak 2001).

Obesity is the most prevalent form of malnutrition in cats living in developed countries. In the United States, an estimated 60% of cats have a body condition score above the ideal range, and 34% of cats are classified as obese (Association for Pet Obesity Prevention 2019). Free‐roaming cats tend to eat many small meals, and the unnatural practice of feeding housecats one or two larger meals may be a risk factor for obesity. Therefore, offering cats ad libitum food may trigger more natural feeding behavior and intake regulation, but this practice is complicated by competition in multi‐cat homes. The optimal feeding routine in a home setting appears to be mimicking natural hunting and feeding strategies by providing opportunities for a cat to seek out food and manipulate food‐dispensing objects throughout the day (Rochlitz 2005; Dantas et al. 2016). An alternative could include using food as a reward during behavior training sessions instead of bowl feeding. Such environmental enrichment has been shown to be an effective therapy for stress‐related conditions like chronic feline lower urinary tract disease (Buffington et al. 2006) and may also be a means of increasing activity and possibly reducing obesity (Dantas et al. 2016). Indoor cats are at a higher risk for both conditions and enrichment is of particular importance for this population (Rodan and Heath 2015).

Some cats display unacceptable or abnormal oral behaviors. Chewing or ingesting non‐food materials (pica) such as plants, fabric, plastic, rubber, cords, or string has been reported by some cat owners (Houpt 2018). Plant or grass eating seems to be a normal behavior, although anecdotally the practice has been linked to gastrointestinal purging (Hart and Hart 2014a). Discomfort due to dental or abdominal pain as well as any metabolic, organ, or neurologic disease should be ruled out or addressed as potential factors in abnormal oral behaviors. Hunger may trigger chewing of unacceptable targets, and some instances of pica may occur during predatory play or predation misdirected toward an object. Chewing can become a learned attention‐seeking or stress‐displacement behavior in some cats, but excessive pica may be consistent with a compulsive disorder. A behavior can be classified as a compulsive disorder when it is repetitive, occurs outside of the normal context, and, once established, often occurs unrelated to any obvious trigger and interferes with basic functioning. Stress or emotional conflict is thought to be an initiating factor in compulsive disorders. Wool and other fabrics are the most common targets in cats diagnosed with a compulsive pica behavior (Landsberg et al. 2013). Recent studies suggest compulsive pica in cats may be associated with gastric dysregulation (Demontigny‐Bédard et al. 2019). In addition to a complete medical assessment, treatment includes restricting access to objects (e.g., blocking access to certain rooms, covering of rubber/plastic cords with PVC piping), enrichment, and potentially psychoactive medications (Landsberg et al. 2013).