The effect of owner presence and scent on stress resilience in cats
Introduction
The development of a bonded relationship with a caretaker is an important part of the social development of many species (Bowlby, 1958, Lorenz, 1952). In some cases, the presence of a bonded individual can facilitate the Secure Base Effect (SBE); a source of comfort that reduces stress and allows for exploration in unfamiliar environments and situations (Bowlby, 1969). While the SBE often occurs between the young of a species and their biological parent, it has also been identified in cross-species relationships (Lorenz, 1952, Schoeberl et al., 2012, Thielke and Udell, 2015), in adult/mature animal relationships (Feeney and Thrush, 2010, Gacsi et al., 2009, Sipple et al., 2021), and in some cases in the presence of an attachment object such as a pacifier or blanket (Lehman et al., 1992).
It has previously been established that pet cats can form close bonds with humans (Edwards et al., 2007, Vitale et al., 2019), and often display the Secure Base Effect in the presence of their human owner (Vitale et al., 2019). Such findings may have significant applied value. Because the SBE functions to reduce stress and increase exploration, it also facilitates a broader range of learning opportunities and affiliative behaviors, especially under novel or potentially stressful situations (Bowlby, 1969, Mariti et al., 2013). Despite the need for more research in this area, and the rapidly increasing popularity of cats as pets (APPA, 2018), research on cat-human relationships has been limited (Vitale Shreve and Udell, 2015).
Studies have also shown that olfaction plays an important role in the development and social behavior of cats (Vitale Shreve and Udell, 2017). Kittens rely on olfactory cues to navigate within their environment, to locate their mother’s nipple to nurse (Mermet et al., 2007) and to identify their nest (Luschekin and Shuleikina, 1989). During rearing, the scent of queen and littermates accumulates around the nest as saliva, urine, hair, and glandular secretions are deposited. Some have suggested that the resulting scent creates an “olfactory secure base” important for stress reduction in kittens (Mermet et al., 2007). Brief separation experiments indicate that persistent distress vocalizations are common when kittens are separated from their mother or nest (Hudson et al., 2015) and that distress signals increase with greater distance from the nest or when olfactory cues are washed away (Freeman and Rosenblatt, 1978b). In addition, kittens are calmed by the odor of their own mother, but not the odor of an unfamiliar mother, which suggests a connection to familiarity or attachment (Freeman and Rosenblatt, 1978a).
The role that scent plays in adult cat relationships is less well understood (Vitale Shreve and Udell, 2017). However, evidence would suggest that chemosensory cues, including scent, also play a role in the social behavior of adult cats. For example, cats have a number of scent-related behaviors including allorubbing, in which cats rub their head or body against a social partner (Crowell-Davis et al., 2004, Vitale, 2018). The belief that human scent can be used to calm adult cats also appears in applied settings. For example, owners are often encouraged to leave behind items holding their scent during periods of absence (e.g., when boarding their animal) or to help facilitate acceptance of a new environment during relocation (e.g., when traveling or during the transition to a new home) with the aim of reducing stress (Young, 2017). However, whether a familiar human’s scent would promote a stress-reducing effect (SBE) has not been scientifically evaluated.
The aim of the current study was to evaluate if an owner, the owner’s scent, or both, would serve a “secure base” function for cats (including evidence of significant stress reduction) after being left alone in a novel location for a short duration of time. It was hypothesized that the presence of a cat’s human caretaker would have the greatest SBE, but that cats would also show signs of stress reduction (significant decrease in vocalizations) in the presence of their owner’s scent if this stimulus served as a functional proxy in the absence of their owner.
Section snippets
Overview
This study utilized the Secure Base Test (SBT) methodology (Harlow, 1958) and holistic classification procedures (Ainsworth and Bell, 1970) which had previously been modified and validated to evaluate the SBE in dog-human relationships (Schöberl et al., 2016, Thielke et al., 2017, Wanser and Udell, 2018, Wanser et al., 2020) and cat-human relationships (Vitale et al., 2019). However, in the current study we also added a second alone phase and the critical ‘scent return’ phase, which were
Secure base effect
Out of the full sample size of 42 cats, 20 (47.6%) demonstrated the Secure Base Effect (raw data on individual relationship styles can be found in the supplemental file). Testing order appeared to influence the percentage of cats that displayed the SBE in the presence of their owner (Fisher’s exact test, p = 0.029). Specifically, when the owner returned before the scent stimulus, 14/21 cats (66.7%) were classified as displaying the SBE. When the Scent Return Phase came before the Owner Return
Discussion
The primary aim of this investigation was to evaluate if (1) the owner’s presence and (2) the owner’s scent (scent object) would serve a secure base (SBE) function for cats evidenced through significant stress reduction. For both orders, distress vocalizations significantly decreased after the owner returned to the room following the alone phase, indicating the presence of the owner resulted in stress reduction. In addition, 83% of cats engaged in owner directed allorubbing after reuniting with
CRediT authorship contribution statement
K.V. and M.U: Conceptualization. K.V. and M.U.: Methodology. A.B. K.V. and M.U.: Analysis. A.B.: Investigation. A.B.: Writing – original draft. K.V., M.U., and A.B.: Writing – review & editing. A.B. and K.V.: Visualization. K.V. and M.U: Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Nicole Sipple, Arden Smith, Hallie Shean, Emmy Chien and Jessika Goodman for assistance with behavioral coding. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. For a portion of this work, K.V. was supported by the National Science Foundation GRFP under Grant No. (1314109- DGE). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not
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