Getting Cat Guardians To Comply With Professional Advice
Nearly half of households in the U.S. include at least one companion cat. However, compared to dog guardians, cat guardians tend to take their animals to the vet less, invest fewer resources in their cats, and are less likely to follow vet recommendations.
Moreover, many cat guardians don’t seek help for behavioral issues in their cats, even though up to 64% report problems like aggression, scratching, and home soiling. When they do seek help, research has found that many guardians can’t, or won’t, implement the recommended solutions.
Understanding the importance of enriching a cat’s environment is vital to addressing these issues. A cat’s well-being relies on basic necessities such as food, water, and litter boxes, but also opportunities for play and hunting. The absence of these essential elements can lead to stress in cats, increasing the likelihood of undesirable behaviors.
One challenge in providing an enriched environment for cats is when guardians believe that the changes may negatively impact their living spaces. In other cases, cat guardians may lack resources or feel unable to make any recommended home adjustments. These beliefs can lead to noncompliance with professional advice.
In this paper, the authors use the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand what influences cat guardians’ behavior in regards to implementing recommendations from veterinary or training professionals. It suggests that the intention to take action depends on perceived behavioral control (how easy or difficult guardians think it is to change their environment), subjective norms (social pressure to make certain changes), and attitude (whether they view the advice positively or negatively).
The authors point out that both motivation and capacity factors can affect perceived behavioral control. Sometimes, cat owners may find a change too demanding, thus making them less motivated to follow through (motivational barrier). Other times, practical constraints like limited time or space can hinder compliance (capacity barrier). Addressing motivational barriers to perceived behavioral control is usually simpler than addressing capacity barriers, as motivational barriers typically involve changing a mindset.
To assess how subjective norms, attitudes, and both motivational and capacity aspects of perceived behavioral control affect compliance with professional cat behavioral advice, researchers conducted an online survey with 221 Dutch cat guardians. Participants were given a scenario where they lived with two cats who weren’t getting along. The recommended solutions from a professional behaviorist included numerous steps, including placing litter boxes throughout the house, giving both cats wet food twice per day in three different bowls, playing with each cat separately at least 20 minutes per day, and more.
One group of cat guardians was informed that other cat guardians believed these changes were beneficial, while the other group was told that fellow cat guardians were uncertain about implementing these changes. Participants then completed questionnaires about their attitude, intention to comply with the advice, subjective norms, and motivational- and capacity-planned behavioral control.
The study found that people who held positive attitudes toward environmental enrichment, those who showed positive subjective norms, and those with a higher perceived behavioral control in general, predicted a greater intention to comply with the professional advice.
The researchers found the following relationship in the data: participants who were told that other cat guardians felt the professional advice was beneficial were more likely to show positive social norms, which in turn predicted a higher motivational perceived behavioral control and, finally, a stronger intention to comply with the advice. However, it’s important to note that the other cat guardians’ opinions did not directly influence participants’ compliance intentions.
Because others’ opinions did not directly influence whether cat guardians would follow professional advice, the authors point out that advocates should not rely solely on sharing what other cat guardians are doing as a way to convince someone to change their home for a cat (in other words, some cat guardians may not care what other cat guardians are doing). Furthermore, the study predominantly featured Dutch women, limiting the generalizability of these findings as gender and culture can influence how animals are treated.
Based on these findings, to improve compliance, animal practitioners should first differentiate between motivational and capacity barriers to perceived behavioral control and address them accordingly. The authors point out that the way to do this is by establishing a strong professional-guardian relationship. Building trust with guardians may encourage them to open up about why they will or won’t follow advice, which professionals can target on a case-by-case basis.