Plain Language Summary: How owners value cats’ choices has implications for cat containment.

By Kathryn Ovenden, Imogen Bassett, and Christine L. Sumner.

Read the full paper here.

Cats are a popular companion animal for many people around the world. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it is common for cat owners to allow their cats to roam outdoors with little to no supervision, even though this can increase the risk that vehicles injure their cats, or the cats become lost. Free roaming outdoor cats can also prey on wildlife. There is growing interest in encouraging cat owners to protect their cat’s welfare and reduce wildlife predation by restricting cats from roaming outdoors. Protecting cat welfare is important to cat owners, however, we know little about why cat owners allow their cat outdoors to begin with and how they would feel about changing this practice.

We held discussion groups with 31 cat owners in Aotearoa New Zealand. We aimed to better understand how they feel restricting roaming outdoors would impact their relationship with their cat, their cat’s welfare, and their local community.

Based on these group discussions, we found three major ideas that best describe how owners think restricting roaming would impact their relationship with their cats. First, it is very important for owners to maintain a good relationship with their cats by providing choices to ensure good cat welfare. Owners think restricting them from roaming would remove an important way to provide cats with choices. Second, owners’ decisions to allow their cats outdoors allow their cats to be curious and enjoy having freedom and independence. Owners think restricting roaming would interfere with their cats expressing themselves. Third, owners think their cats belong in many different outdoor places, even if they are living in the same areas as wildlife vulnerable to cat predation. Restricting roaming would remove them from the local community. 

Therefore, helping owners to still offer their cats choices is likely to be a useful part of any efforts to encourage keeping cats at home on their property. There is likely no one-size-fits-all approach to encourage cat owners to keep their cats at home. A better understanding of how owners view their and their cat’s place in the local community may lead to better ways of sharing these spaces with wildlife.