I’ve chosen to do my final year research project studying about underlying health problems causing abnormal or unusual behaviour in domestic cats.
We were sent a list of research project options which we could choose from, and this was the one that stood out to me the most. It could’ve been about dogs or cats or both, but I chose to look into cats rather than dogs as there isn’t much out there relating to domestic cats in this subject currently.
Another reason is that I’ve also always grown up having pet cats (Pippin, Charlie & Tigger can be seen below!) and I’m hugely interested in their behaviour, health and welfare so it really appealed to me.
I’m going to try and find a correlation between cat’s who show abnormal behaviours (which I will discuss in more detail in later blog posts) and if these behaviours could be caused by underlying health problems. A common example is when cats start frequently urinating outside of their litter tray/in areas of the house they shouldn’t do so as a result of having developed FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease). This is just one of many examples, where behavioural changes can explain hidden health problems or diseases. I’m looking forwards to gathering my data for this project, and am going to try and update this blog with my weekly progress.
(L-R; Pippin, Charlie and Tigger)