L Plitman
Motivation of Owners to Purchase Pedigree Cats, with Specific Focus on the Acquisition of Brachycephalic Cats
Plitman, L; Cerná, P; Farnworth, M J; Packer, R M A; Gunn-Moore, D A
Authors
P Cerná
M J Farnworth
R M A Packer
D A Gunn-Moore
Abstract
Selective breeding of domestic cats (Felis catus) has resulted in a variety of temperaments, body shapes, facial features and, in particular, coat types and colours. There are now over 70 recognised cat breeds, created over 150 years. Many cat owners select their cat for features that appeal to them, so cat breeders primarily focus on these aesthetic traits, changing cat features to their concept of beauty or appeal. Unfortunately, these changes can impact heavily upon cat health and welfare, as inbreeding and breeding for extreme physical conformations has become prevalent. Particular concern focuses on brachycephalic (BC) cats with wide flat faces (e.g., Persians and Exotic Shorthairs). Using a questionnaire for cat owners, we identified marked differences in how owners went about acquiring their cats when we compared owners of BC cats, pedigree (P), (but not BC) cats and non-pedigree (NP) cats; 1367 responses (BC n = 85, P n = 400, NP n = 882). Owners of BC cats were less likely to undertake significant research before buying their cat (e.g., not looking into management requirements or potential health problems associated with the BC face-shape and/or Persian coat) compared to P owners. Once owned, they did not consider their cat as healthy (especially related to eye and skin conditions) compared to P owners. BC owners were also less likely to recommend their breed to others, possibly reflecting poor health experiences and/or management issues.
Citation
Plitman, L., Cerná, P., Farnworth, M. J., Packer, R. M. A., & Gunn-Moore, D. A. (in press). Motivation of Owners to Purchase Pedigree Cats, with Specific Focus on the Acquisition of Brachycephalic Cats. Animals, 9(7), 394. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9070394
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jun 24, 2019 |
Deposit Date | Jul 12, 2019 |
Publicly Available Date | Jul 17, 2019 |
Journal | Animals |
Electronic ISSN | 2076-2615 |
Publisher | MDPI |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 9 |
Issue | 7 |
Pages | 394 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9070394 |
Public URL | https://rvc-repository.worktribe.com/output/1381590 |
Files
12221_Motivation-of-owners-to-purchase-pedigree-cats-with-specific-focus-on-the-acquisition-of-brachycephalic-cats_VoR.pdf
(628 Kb)
PDF
You might also like
Re-evaluating the placebo response in recent canine dietary epilepsy trials
(2024)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About RVC Repository
Administrator e-mail: publicationsrepos@rvc.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search