Guidelines rationale: A cat’s level of comfort with its environment is intrinsically linked to its physical health, emotional wellbeing and behavior. Having a basic understanding of the cat’s species-specific environmental needs and how cats interact with their environment will provide a foundation for addressing these fundamental requirements. Environmental needs: Addressing environmental needs is essential (not optional) for optimum wellbeing of the cat. Environmental needs include those relating not only to the cat’s physical surroundings (indoors or outdoors; in the home environment or at the veterinary practice) but also those affecting social interaction, including responses to human contact. Five ‘pillars’ framework: The authorship panel has organized the Guidelines around five primary concepts (‘pillars’) that provide the framework for a healthy feline environment. Understanding these principles and the unique environmental needs of the cat will help veterinarians, cat owners and care-givers to reduce stress, the incidence of stress-related disorders, and unwanted behavior in their feline patients and pets. The recommendations in the Guidelines apply to all pet cats, regardless of lifestyle.

This article aims to assist general veterinary practitioners to recognise how cats respond to confinement, and to understand what constitutes environmental enrichment, to help them implement or advise on appropriate enrichment strategies for cats confined in a hospital cage, home environment (particularly an indoor-only home), or cattery or rescue shelter, based on published evidence to date.

BackgroundThere is some evidence to suggest that dog ownership may improve physical activity (PA) among older adults, but to date, studies examining this, have either depended on self-report or incomplete datasets due to the type of activity monitor used to record physical activity. Additionally, the effect of dog ownership on sedentary behaviour (SB) has not been explored. The aim of the current study was to address these issues by using activPAL monitors to evaluate the influence of dog ownership on health enhancing PA and SB in a longitudinal study of independently-mobile, community-dwelling older adults.MethodsStudy participants (43 pairs of dog owners and non-dog owners, matched on a range of demographic variables) wore an activPAL monitor continuously for three, one-week data collection periods over the course of a year. Participants also reported information about their own and their dog demographics, caring responsibilities, and completed a diary of wake times. Diary data was used to isolate waking times, and outcome measures of time spent walking, time spent walking at a moderate cadence (>100 steps/min), time spent standing, time spent sitting, number of sitting events (continuous periods of sitting), and the number of and of time spent sitting in prolonged events (>30 min). For each measure, a linear mixed effects model with dog ownership as a fixed effect, and a random effects structure of measurement point nested in participant nested in pair was used to assess the effect of dog ownership.ResultsOwning a dog indicated a large, potentially health improving, average effect of 22 min additional time spent walking, 95%CI (12, 34), and 2760 additional steps per day, 95%CI (1667, 3991), with this additional walking undertaken at a moderate intensity cadence. Dog owners had significantly fewer sitting events. However, there were no significant differences between the groups for either the total time spent sitting, or the number or duration of prolonged sedentary events.ConclusionsThe scale of the influence of dog ownership on PA found in this study, indicates that future research regarding PA in older adults should assess and report dog ownership and/or dog walking status.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-017-4422-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A wide variety of feline species have been shown to gain welfare benefits from the\ud introduction of olfactory stimuli to the captive environment. The effect of this stimulation\ud on the domestic cat, however, has been largely overlooked. This study thus explored the\ud influence of olfactory stimulation on cats housed in a rescue shelter to determine whether\ud it holds any value as a method of enrichment for this species. One hundred and fifty cats\ud were randomly assigned to one of five conditions of olfactory stimulation (control [an\ud odourless cloth]; biologically relevant odour [a cloth impregnated with the scent of\ud rabbit]; biologically non-relevant odours, [a cloth impregnated with lavender, a renowned\ud relaxant, or the scent of catnip, a well known stimulant]). Cats were exposed to the\ud relevant olfactory stimuli for 3 h a day for five consecutive days. Each cat’s behaviour was\ud recorded every 5 min on days one, three and five of olfactory exposure, using\ud instantaneous scan sampling. Overall, cats showed relatively little interest in the cloths,\ud spending just over 6% of the total observation time interacting with these stimuli.\ud However, animals exposed to the catnip-impregnated cloths exhibited significantly more\ud interest in the stimulus than animals exposed to the other cloths, spending an average of\ud 11.14% of the observation time interacting with the objects. Across all experimental\ud conditions, interest in the cloths was significantly lower in the second and third hours of\ud stimulus presentation compared to the first, suggesting habituation. Certain components\ud of the cats’ behavioural repertoire were influenced by olfactory stimulation. Catnip and\ud prey scent encouraged a significantly higher frequency of behaviours indicative of reduced\ud activity (e.g. more time sleeping, less time standing and actively exploring the\ud environment) in comparison to the control condition. Catnip also encouraged play-like\ud behaviour characterised as the ‘catnip response’. Overall, the results suggest that certain\ud odours, notably catnip, may hold potential as environmental enrichment for captive\ud domestic cats

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