Unwanted feline scratching in the home: A re-examination of its relationship with stress and marking

Unwelcome environmental scratching in the home by pet cats (Felis catus) has been attributed to some form of stress-related marking. However, the relationship between scratching and potential stressors is not well-established. Emotional responses are key to understanding the nature of stress, as they have an organisational function that helps to prepare the animal for actions associated with a specific goal (e.g. frustration prepares an animal for dealing with limits to its autonomy). Thus the relationship between responses and emotionally competent stimuli can be used to help elucidate in what way a behaviour might (or might not) be related to stress. We therefore used a survey to explore the physical and social environmental contexts in which scratching occurs, to evaluate the relationship between scratching and potential stress in cats. An English-language, online survey of 1797 cat-owners explored scratching at 7 types of location in the home which may be of functional significance to the cat e.g. resting places, feeding places, and physical boundaries to the core territory. Binary logistic regression was used to model frequent versus infrequent scratching on feline biological factors (age, sex) and the presence of potential stressors e.g. other cats, dogs, children, and recent household changes. Cats scratched most frequently at resting places and in the living room and bedroom. The most frequently cited activities undertaken in the immediate vicinity of scratching were greeting people positively, sleeping, and entering or leaving a room. Known predictors of urine-marking were not significant predictors of scratching. The only potential stressors significantly associated with scratching were the absence of dogs in the home (which was contrary to the stress-association prediction), and the departure of a person from the household within the last 3 months (which is ambiguous in its relationship with stress). The association between scratching and locations associated with comfort, sleep, and positive interactions with caregivers, lead us to suggest that a major emotional association with scratching involves positive affect. We argue that this type of scratching might be predicted to be inhibited rather than exacerbated by stressors. We therefore suggest that the popular clinical behaviour assertion that increased scratching is a sign of stress in the home needs to be carefully considered and not assumed to be necessarily the case. Further research is required to explore whether specific forms of scratching might exist which are clearly related to some form of stress response.