The effect of owner presence and scent on stress resilience in cats

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105444Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Roughly half of evaluated cats exhibited the Secure Base Effect with their owner.

  • Cats displayed less stress behavior when in the company of their owner.

  • An object holding the owner’s scent did not promote the Secure Base Effect in cats.

  • Cats exhibited stress behavior in the presence of the scent object alone.

  • Allorubbing is an important reunion behavior, 83% of cats rub their owner following a separation.

Abstract

The Secure Base Effect (SBE) refers to a human or non-human animal’s ability to use the presence of a bonded caretaker, or other familiar stimulus, as a source of comfort that facilitates stress reduction and exploration in novel or stressful contexts. Recent research has shown that some pet domestic cats (Felis catus) display SBE in the presence of their human owner, a finding that could be utilized to improve cat welfare. In applied settings, cat owners are often encouraged to leave behind items holding their scent when leaving their cat in a novel location (e.g. boarding facility), so that these items can be provided to the cat if they show signs of separation distress. Although this practice has not be studied scientifically in cats, scent objects have been found to produce SBE in human research under similar conditions. Olfaction is thought to play an important role in the social behavior of domesticated cats, even in early life, as exposure to nest scent has been found to reduce stress in kittens. Thus, the possibility that owner scent might be sufficient to elicit SBE in cats is an important empirical question with applied implications. In the current study we asked whether owner scent would reduce cat anxiety when in an unfamiliar environment, and to what extent this might be related to whether the cat showed evidence of using their owner as a Secure Base. Forty-two adult cats underwent a counterbalanced Secure Base Test that examined the cat’s behavior with the owner present, without the owner present, and with a scent object present. On average, cats displayed a lower frequency of stress-related behaviors when the owner was present, providing support for the presence of SBE. However, this effect was not seen when the cat was alone with the scent object. The results of this research can be used to deepen our understanding of feline social behavior and welfare. These findings also highlight the importance of using evidence based practices to address cat anxiety in applied settings.

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

References (44)

  • K.R. Vitale et al.

    Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans

    Curr. Biol.

    (2019)
  • K.R. Vitale et al.

    The quality of being sociable: the influence of human attentional state, population, and human familiarity on domestic cat sociability

    Behav. Process.

    (2019)
  • M.D.S. Ainsworth et al.

    Attachment, exploration, and separation: illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation

    Child Dev.

    (1970)
  • APPA., 2018. Pet Industry Market Size & Ownership Statistics. Retrieved May 1, 2019, from...
  • J. Bowlby

    The nature of the child’s tie to his mother

    Int. J. Psychoanal.

    (1958)
  • Bowlby, J., 1969. Attachment and Loss: Volume I Attachment. Basic...
  • Bowlby, J., 1973. Attachment and Loss: Volume II: Separation, Anxiety and Anger. The International Psycho-Analytical...
  • J. Brooks et al.

    The effect of time on attachment as measured in a free-play situation

    Child Dev.

    (1974)
  • M. Eriksson et al.

    Cats and owners interact more with each other after a longer duration of separation

    PLoS One

    (2017)
  • B.C. Feeney et al.

    Relationship influences on exploration in adulthood: the characteristics and function of a secure base

    J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

    (2010)
  • N. Freeman et al.

    Specificity of litter odors in the control of home orientation among kittens

    Dev. Psychobiol.

    (1978)
  • N.C.G. Freeman et al.

    The interrelationship between thermal and olfactory stimulation in the development of home orientation in newborn kittens

    Dev. Psychobiol.

    (1978)
  • Cited by (11)

    • Indoor and outdoor management for cats: inferences about the welfare and cat-caretaker relationship

      2023, Journal of Veterinary Behavior
      Citation Excerpt :

      Our results showed that there was a preference of indoor cats to stay close to their caretakers when inside (in beds, sofas, et cetera), since most of the respondents said that their cats were allowed to move freely inside the house. This behavior is mentioned by other authors as indicative of a positive cat-caretaker relationship, since cats remain more relaxed near their caretakers or in places where the caretaker's scent are more prominent (Koyasu et al., 2020; Behnke et al., 2021). On the other hand, outdoor cats predominantly stayed outside or in different areas of the house when the caretaker is at home, this has been already observed in another study (Rochlitz, 2004b).

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text