Читать книгу Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff - Группа авторов - Страница 78

Fear is a normal, often adaptive emotion experienced in the presence of a threat, whereas phobia is an extreme and non‐adaptive fear response. Anxiety is the anticipation of a negative event, whether real or imagined, and can be become chronic and debilitating in some cats. These emotions can produce a range of responses, broadly referred to as Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fidget (Landsberg et al. 2013). As previously discussed, escape, avoidance, or motionless behaviors are the most common feline responses for minimizing danger, but fear‐related aggression can occur when a cat cannot escape and/or learns aggression is the most successful tactic. Treatment for fear without aggression follows similar protocols to fear‐related aggression: avoidance, behavior modification intended to change the behavioral and emotional response to the trigger, and antianxiety therapies.

Noises can be triggers for anxious or phobic responses. This may be most noticeable with sharp, sudden sounds like thunder or alarms but also with novel stimuli such as visitors or a new baby. In fact, most sources of fear in the home are primarily related to social stress with another cat, dog, or human. However, hyper‐attachment, typically to human family member(s), is also possible and can lead to separation‐related distress. Excessive vocalization, eliminations outside the litterbox, or destruction are behaviors reported to occur in these cats when the family is absent or around their arrival or departure times. Some cats do not show signs of fear or distress at the time of a stressful event but develop chronic anxiety, which tends to manifest as displacement behaviors (“fidget”) including overgrooming, pacing, changes in social behavior, and vague sicknesses like vomiting, diarrhea, and chronic urinary tract disease. Treatment involves creating pleasant associations to separation from the family (Schwartz 2002).

Unfortunately, fear of the veterinary clinic and handling for procedures is ubiquitous in cats. One study indicated feline distress reduces a cat owner’s willingness to take the cat to the vet, and this, in turn, could have a deleterious effect on overall feline health and well‐being (Volk et al. 2011). There are several initiatives to help veterinarians and shelter staff create a less stressful experience through a reduction in noise and exposure to unfamiliar people and animals, low‐stress restraint, and antianxiety medications when appropriate (Fear Free Pets 2020; Low Stress Handling 2020). Behavior modification used to create pleasant associations with the carrier, restraint, and procedures such as nail trims and oral medication administration is an important aspect of fear reduction in the veterinary clinic and proper care at home. See Chapter 14 for more information about applying these concepts to shelter cats.