Transcript
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In our last episode, we embarked on a fascinating discussion about the first three of five essential animal welfare needs.
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We talked about the importance of nutrition, providing an appropriate environment for our pets.
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We also uncovered the critical need to protect animals from pain, injury and suffering, and we really talked in depth about the impact of selective breeding for specific traits that may not be in the best interest of animals.
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Today, we continue this important conversation.
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In this episode, we're going to explore the final two and probably the most overlooked animal welfare needs the need for animals to exhibit natural behavior and the need for companionship.
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So stay tuned for another exciting episode of Starlight Pet Talk.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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We also share inspiring rescue and adoption stories from people who've taken their love of pets to the next level by getting involved in animal welfare.
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My name is Amy Castro and I'm the founder and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and a columnist for Pet Age Magazine.
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I've rescued thousands of animals and help people just like you find the right pet for their family.
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My mission is to help pet parents learn all the ways that they can care for, live with and even have fun with their pets so they can live their very best lives, and their pets can too.
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So let's go ahead and move on to the tougher stuff.
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Need number four the need to express natural behavior.
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And again.
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I think that's another thing that people don't have any clue.
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You know, there's the extremes Either they have no clue or there's so many people that still are equating natural behavior in dogs to wolves and other things and it's like, yeah, I think they in many ways have evolved past that, so that may not be accurate either.
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Where are you seeing us go wrong as humans in this area?
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I think these are massive.
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I mean the behavioral and social needs, which are the two you know, I see them, the two sort of psychological needs I think are really inextricably linked.
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So if you're happy to, let's talk about both of them together.
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Yes, because five was whether they need companionship or whether they need to be with other animals, which some animals do and some animals don't.
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Yeah, and I think I think these two, these two mental well-being needs, are hugely misunderstood.
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So in the UK we've got I don't know what it's like in the States, but in the UK we have about one and a half million rabbits are kept as pets and the social needs are a real big one because you know, if you want a rabbit but not two rabbits, then a rabbit isn't the right pet for you because they have social needs, they're social animals.
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Classic thing was that people would think, well, I'm going to have this beautiful environment for my pet rabbit, so they won't need to dig.
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Well, you can't take away any need that an animal has.
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You know rabbits want to dig.
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So if you want to be a good owner for a rabbit, you have to provide them with something that they can dig in and it's this kind of human convenience thing.
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So, oh, I don't really want a big hutch in Iran, I don't want the garden getting nibbled.
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Then a rabbit isn't the right pet for you.
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Cats are solitary animals and loads of crazy cat ladies have got millions of them.
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Their behavioural needs are really misunderstood, so cats are really subtle communicators.
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The first two kids books that I wrote were cats and rabbits, because they're the most misunderstood pets and it's really difficult to get their behavioural and social needs right, you know.
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So we already talked about de-clawing.
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You know, a normal cat behaviour that they need to exhibit is clawing.
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It's conditioning for their claws, it's scent marking, it's this massive behavioural need.
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If you don't want a cat to claw stuff in your house, then a cat isn't the right pet for you.
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Going back to the extreme confirmation, one of the talks I'm doing this week at this conference in Orlando is the behavioural impact of extreme confirmation as well, because I think we're really used to talking about the physical stuff, but when you look at, for instance, well, as we touched on earlier with the Sphinx cats, can they groom properly, can they do this fundamental behavioural need that they have?
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And I think meeting those behavioural needs is something that's massively misunderstood and neglected across pet keeping.
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Their behavioural and social needs are something that really need much more investment from owners, and I think, as vets, we should probably be much stronger on getting that across.
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I think one of the big issues that vets always face is that people don't come to us for advice before they get an animal.
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They only come to us once they've already got it and I think it's one of the things I put in all my talks is that veterinary profession we should be doing much more to try and get to people before they get animals, and it can be done in a diplomatic way.
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You know it's.
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If you can't meet these five welfare needs, that isn't the right pet for you.
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Yeah well, I think you know for veterinarians, because I do a lot of training and consulting my business life with the, with veterinarians, is it's a struggle to try to.
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You know you're trying to keep your, your client happy.
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You're trying to keep their business.
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You know you're trying to do.
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You know what's the best thing for the animal.
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That now that they've already got and it's really difficult and I find this in rescue to it's really difficult to say you've made a mistake and you need to make a change.
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You know you've gotten the wrong pet.
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So they're kind of between a rock and a hard place to a certain degree, and the thing is, having been on the other end of it I years ago, when I was in practice, I was really shocked that I took this phone call in.
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This lady said to me I'm thinking about getting a dog, but I wanted to get your advice about what sort of breed to get.
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And I was like, wow, this never happens.
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And she said I was thinking about getting a basset.
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And I said, are you know?
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They've they've gotten loads of health issues, you know, really really severe health issues because of their confirmation and so on.
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And she said, oh well, what about?
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And then she came up with something else and I said, well, yeah, they're better, but still, you know you've picked a breed that is very prone to this, this.
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And in the end she got really angry with me because obviously it's that I've got lots of friends who are that's obviously, and you know we talk about brachys, fallot breeds and things, and I've got so many that's who said, oh, someone in my own family asked me if what I thought about them getting a French bulldog, and the vet said definitely don't get a French bulldog.
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And then they just go and get one anyway.
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Even when we try and give people advice pre purchase, often it's ignored.
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Anyway, I think it's a really really want to hear it.
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They.
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They just want you to to reinforce what they already want to do.
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It's like when you used to hold up two ties and he'd say which tie do you think I should wear?
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And I'd say this one, the one on the right, and he'd say well, are you sure?
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Because that the data.
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And it's like no, I think still the one on the right.
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And again, I give you three tries, right by the time I've said the one on the right three times, I'll just say look, it sounds like you want to wear the one on the left, where what you want, you know what?
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why do you ask me in the first place?
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Yeah, exactly.
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When we talk before and it sounded like maybe you didn't want to.
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I want to go down this road about the indoor, outdoor cat thing when it comes to behavior, because you know at least in in my experience and the research that I have done, that indoor cats tend to live longer lives.
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You know length and quality.
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I know we're not necessarily the same thing which has gotten me to think about it some more.
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But in many communities in the United States it's not even legal to have an outdoor free roaming cat.
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But people do it.
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You know it's like nobody does anything about it until your neighbors get fed up, they trap it and it ends up at animal control.
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I'm kind of breaking two of the two of the needs with my own personal cats because they're exclusively indoors and I've got three of them living together, which you know.
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You had mentioned that cats are more solitary being.
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I'd be lying if I said I don't see the some of the negative aspects of doing what I'm doing from the standpoint of you know, it's like sometimes they seemingly get along and other times they're smacking each other around and then somebody's peeing on the kitchen counter, you know kind of thing, and it's like, and it was interesting.
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But after we had that discussion, the other day there was an article that popped up on my actually it was on my Facebook feed from the New Yorker talking about the no kill movement and trap, neuter, return, which is a big controversial thing in the US I don't know if it is other places as well and you know the impact of basically saying, okay, we don't want to kill community cats, but we can't bring them indoors because they're feral, so we're trap, neutering and returning them and then they're decimating the bird population, mice things like that and it you know it had this.
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The graphic was very interesting, as the New Yorker graphics always are.
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It was a aerial view of a seemingly suburban environment and then these giant God and they weren't monster faces, but the size of these cats were like Godzilla making their way through the neighborhood, kind of thing.
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Yeah.
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It's like, okay, so what's the right answer there?
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You know, let's you know as far as the natural behavior of going outside, let's address that first.
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I think it's tricky and obviously there are massive cultural differences between Europe and the US and lots of other countries.
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I went to a talk of massive conference years and years ago must be 15 or 20 years ago and there was a speaker from the states talking about cat behavior and they had.
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There was some statistic and I can't remember it now because it was so long ago, but it was absolutely shocking about the number of cats that are euthanized in the states because of inappropriate toileting behavior.
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I do quite a bit of clinical nutrition advice as well and a lot of the calls that we get regarding prescription foods are for cats that are urinating in the house or I've got stress cystitis or all those things.
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So one of my things is are the kids books that I wrote are called are is a cat the right pet for you?
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The pet disseptive series is a gerbil the right pet for you?
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Those kind of things.
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And the big issue with cats is we would never well, some people do you wouldn't have a dog and keep it indoors.
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Why do we expect a cat that is in the wild?
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Cats have a territory of about 500 square meters average.
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Not many houses are going to provide that Environment.
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So this whole thing about providing an, an adequate environment for your animals, as we took, you know, when we went through the five welfare needs, the environment thing is, yeah, for a dog, easy buy a bed, you know, or let it sleep in your bedroom, wherever you're going to do it, and you take it out for walks and you meet its needs.
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But the cats why do we assume that they'd be happy indoors?
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They're not happy indoors.
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There's a huge, very, very well evidenced research that shows that the the biggest cause of stress related issues and cats is being kept indoors and being kept with other cats.
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So it comes down to this is an animal the right pet for you?
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And probably if?
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Well, it's difficult because I know that loads of cats are kept in in the States and I've had people Attack me on Facebook, other vets even From the US, who said, well, but if I let them out, they're gonna get eaten by coyotes.
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Well, obviously I.
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We don't have that problem in the UK, we don't have these free roaming, massive predators.
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But for me it comes back to if you cannot meet the behavioral needs of an animal, and To me, going outside is a behavioral need for a cat and one of the big issues in in Lots of places with wildlife.
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There's a very famous presenter in England on wildlife called Chris Packham, and he is a very vocal proponent of people not letting cats out because of the volume of wildlife that they kill, right?
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So We've domesticated cats and we have to take responsibility for the fact that they're there.
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So we do need to do TNR schemes and things, but we also need to.
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You know if, the same as with the physical illnesses of the pedigree animals, if you want to make animal welfare better, we probably need to have fewer of them and look after them better, and gradually reducing populations Is a difficult thing to do.
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Yes, so for me I know this will be really odd to hear for a lot of your US Listeners I don't think cats should be kept indoors.
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Absolutely I'm against cats being kept indoors.
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They need to have.
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One of the fundamental things that's that's important for animal mental well-being is freedom of choice.
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So you know this.
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One thing that we talk about with rabbits is don't have a hutch and a run.
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You have a hutch and a massive run that they can access whenever they want to, because they're crepuscular animals, which means they're active at dawn and dusk, same as cat and it's not convenient for us, so we put them out in the day when they don't want to be out, you know.
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So I Think if I was going to change the face of pet keeping, I would want everyone to have to prove that they knew what the five welfare needs were for the animal they're thinking about getting.
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And they had to prove they could meet them and you would transform.
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Well, you know this.
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Working in rescue, you know how many animals do you get in because people didn't want them, scratching the furniture or the dogs uncontrollable, because they didn't socialize it properly or they didn't.
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You know, you'll see it all the time Is that inappropriate choice of pet and and people have to have the discipline.
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This is why in the kids books, they do their month and then they ask themselves Can I meet the needs of this pet?
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And and the last chapter is it's all right to say no.
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You know, if you realize that you didn't have enough space for a rabbit or you didn't have enough time to walk a dog every day, then that's fine and then it looks like well, it doesn't mean you can't have a pet, but maybe just think about a pet that you're going to have this symbiotic relationship with and you know, mutually, mutually beneficial relationship where you're providing its needs and and the thing is you'll see this all the time in rescue a Lot of animal behavior issues which will end up making them come to you are Because their needs, their behavioral needs, aren't being met.
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So you know things like frustration, destructive behavior, cats urinating in the house, all the time they are because those animals behavior and social needs are not being met and you know we just don't see that the same as we would if someone starved a dog.
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It's a very easy thing to get upset about, but actually Mental well-being is is enormous.
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Yeah, you know, and I think specific to this issue of cats.
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What it got me thinking about is there's a rescue and I can't remember the name of the rescue, but it's a huge rescue that has a big following.
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That's in the northern United States, where it gets a million degrees below zero in the winter time and so they get a lot of outdoor cats that literally their ears Will freeze off.
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So they have all these cats that have partial ears and and sometimes missing toes and parts of their tails, things like that and so, but it gets.
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It got me thinking about the fact that when it comes to looking at this environment, it's beyond the inside and outside it is looking at.
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You know, where do you live?
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What might be one of the differences between cats Homes in the in the US versus the UK would be like my backyard, should I want to let my cats out, is probably easily an acre, an acre and a half and so, but at the same time I have had goats hauled over my fence by a cougar, I've had all of my ducks got decimated by coyotes, we've got bobcats and I am outside the fourth largest city in the United States, not too far, about an hour outside of the city.
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Should I do something to secure my backyard, to give my cats some territory to be outside, with certain cat proof fencing?
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Absolutely, I could do that.
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We just adopted out to a lady because we require cats to be indoors unless you have made those accommodations because of the legalities, because of the predators, for right, wrong or otherwise.
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That's a decision that we made.
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But this lady had gone to the trouble of getting that cat proof fencing for her suburban backyard.
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So it's like, okay, then you can have the cat and put it outside and it's probably going to have a happier life.
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And I think that just kind of goes back to the overall picture that we're talking about.
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Is that, as you're going through these five needs of pets, is that you, like you said?
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I mean you said it and I'll say it again is you really need to look at whether you can provide it?
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How far are you willing to go to provide what that animal needs?
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And if it's not, and if you're not willing to even take a basic step like putting up a fence or taking the dog for a walk 30 minutes a day, then you really need to question whether you need a pet.
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You know any kind of pet, let alone that particular type of pet.
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I think people just need to be more honest with themselves and maybe not be so selfish.
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Yeah, and I mean, but we all do it, you know, we.
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I think it is just, it's human nature.
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We want something and we don't want someone to tell us we can't have it.
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Yeah, but the thing is, you know, if you take this to the natural nth degree, then you get into the someone saying, well, what about all the people that have children that they can't look after properly?
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And it's like, oh wait, this is yeah, but it's true, you know, people make snap decisions.
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I want this, therefore, I will have it.
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And you know, we live in this one click culture where people can get whatever they want.
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And I think you know, going back to the behavioral and social needs and you can tell me your views on this from the state's point of view is that we have huge issues now with the welfare of exotic pets.
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So we've got snakes and geckos and all sorts of things being kept, things like snakes, minimum enclosure sizes for snakes they don't have to be able to stretch out.
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Now, who has decided that a snake should never be able to stretch itself to its full length if it wanted to?
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Who made that decision?
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And a lot of the, as we said with rabbits, a lot of this is based on grandfather things that happened before.
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My husband used to do a lot of exotic work.
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He's a vet and he would regularly get leopard geckos in with these lesions on their chins because they spend all day running into the side of their varium.
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So that should tell you that those animals are not suitable for captivity.
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You know, it's as simple as that it's.
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You know, if we don't even understand the basic needs of them, we shouldn't be having them as pets, you know, and things like tortoises that are kept in completely inadequate temperatures and never get to hibernate and lose limbs because they're poorly hibernated.
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You know, the list goes on.
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If we can't meet the basic welfare needs of things like cats and dogs that we've kept in captivity forever, why on earth are we adding another thousand species that aren't native to where we live?
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And this is one of the big issues with cats in general is that they're not native to most places, but we have to take responsibility for the fact that we've domesticated them and they're now bloody everywhere, you know.
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So.
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Right.
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Well, yeah, we've brought them here, you know, we brought them to these locations where you know, even if they can get outdoors, they're not suited to the environment.
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Because I think that's, you know, that's.
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I think a huge difference between dogs and cats in being outdoors is that if I let my dog, well, down here, at least here in the States and I'll speak to Texas specifically If your dog was free roaming, everybody'd be talking about it, somebody'd be catching him and returning him to you or turning him into the shelter or whatever the case may be.
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But cats, free, roam everywhere and dogs there's not too many.
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Now could a if a coot, if the one cougar that apparently roams our area, you know, yeah, it probably could get my dog.
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But I think my cats are much more at risk as prey Because they're predators and prey, whereas dogs, for the most part in most communities, are really just predators.
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There's not too much that can prey on them.
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So that makes a little bit of a difference, I think, down here.
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But again, that's our choice when we decide to take that animal on as a pet.
00:22:16.535 --> 00:22:24.586
So now, knowing that my cat is predator and prey, how do I meet its needs and keep it safe, because that's, you know, that's part of.
00:22:24.707 --> 00:22:29.794
One of its needs is to you know to be healthy and be safe, and so maybe I don't need a cat out here.
00:22:29.794 --> 00:22:30.555
You know kind of thing.
00:22:31.055 --> 00:22:34.718
Yeah, I mean, but it is that thing, isn't it?
00:22:34.718 --> 00:22:47.045
You know we have a lot of RTAs in England where cats have horrific injuries on the road, and I know that there are lots of people who say, well, that's why I keep my cat in.
00:22:47.045 --> 00:22:54.450
But I think, you know, to me it's the same as if I said, well, I got two children.
00:22:54.450 --> 00:23:06.361
They might have an injury, they might break a leg or they might break an arm or whatever, as lots of kids do, but I wouldn't just keep them in the house and make them miserable in case something happened to them.
00:23:06.361 --> 00:23:14.209
I think there's a balance between meeting the behavioral needs of your pets and choosing the right pet for your situation.
00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:19.555
And actually in the States, if they're not allowed out, then maybe fewer people should have them.
00:23:19.555 --> 00:23:21.297
Do you know what I mean?
00:23:21.297 --> 00:23:30.126
If you've got a massive garden and you can afford to put a catproof fence around it, brilliant, you know you're providing for all the behavioral needs of that animal.
00:23:30.126 --> 00:23:33.390
And I think you know this whole thing of telling people.
00:23:33.390 --> 00:24:19.771
I'm probably going to get loads of hate mail from this, but I think telling people, telling people that they can't meet the needs of an animal, is unpopular, but it's something that we should be talking about, because you know having a pet is a you should be providing for all of its needs, whether they're convenient or not, you know, and this whole debarking, de-clawing, keeping them in, you know, having a run that's separate from a hutch we shouldn't be compromising on animals' welfare needs because it's inconvenient for us, you know if something is too inconvenient, then that isn't the right pet for you.
00:24:21.556 --> 00:24:27.442
Yeah Well, and it becomes, I think, kind of a cyclical thing, like you mentioned.
00:24:27.442 --> 00:24:38.237
It's like you know, maybe it's not the right pet for you, Maybe we need fewer of those pets to be out there as an option for people like the exotics, I mean there's just some of those things.
00:24:38.237 --> 00:24:51.535
That's like, why did anybody ever decide that we need to go grab that thing from some other continent and, you know, stuff it in a crate and ship it here so that somebody can have this anomaly in their, you know, in their, in their home?
00:24:51.535 --> 00:24:59.727
I don't know, but I think you know it also brings up the question and it's you really got me thinking this past week about the whole.
00:24:59.727 --> 00:25:00.448
You know.
00:25:00.448 --> 00:25:11.911
Back to the cats and the indoor-outdoor thing is that you know, quality of life versus quality of life, you know to say, oh well, because you keep a cat indoors, it might live to be.
00:25:11.911 --> 00:25:12.772
I don't know.
00:25:12.772 --> 00:25:13.555
I don't know what the stats are.
00:25:14.155 --> 00:25:15.096
I can see yeah.
00:25:15.337 --> 00:25:16.980
Yeah, yeah, 20 years old.
00:25:16.980 --> 00:25:26.555
But you know, I have right now in my barn six barn cats and at least in the last two years, two of them have disappeared.
00:25:26.555 --> 00:25:30.800
One of them we did find Something, obviously got it.
00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:35.568
And so you say, okay, well, that cat only made it to six, or that cat only made it to three.
00:25:35.568 --> 00:25:39.621
And I think it's hard, as you know, for human beings.
00:25:39.621 --> 00:25:53.281
We spend this, we spend a lot of time projecting out or projecting our needs on our pets, projecting our behaviors on them, like even the, you know, the need to express natural behavior it's like people think that or the social.
00:25:53.281 --> 00:25:54.903
Let's take the social as an example.
00:25:54.903 --> 00:26:00.411
Well, my bunny doesn't need another bunny because I'm playing with my bunny and interacting with my bunny.
00:26:00.411 --> 00:26:03.300
It's like, how do you know your bunny really wants to interact with you?
00:26:03.300 --> 00:26:05.826
I mean, they might, but they can't tell you that.
00:26:05.826 --> 00:26:09.555
They can't tell you I'm longing for another bunny to hang out with.
00:26:09.555 --> 00:26:12.640
I mean you just have to get what their natural behavior is.
00:26:12.759 --> 00:26:27.647
And so my barn cats, you know I wish they could say to me hey, we're living the life out here and you know, if I get picked off by a coyote tomorrow, I would have been glad to have those five years versus the 20 years that the cat that's living inside.
00:26:27.647 --> 00:26:35.988
You know they can't tell us, and so we've got to make our best judgment for them and try our best to meet these, to meet these needs.
00:26:37.036 --> 00:26:37.896
I think that's right.
00:26:37.896 --> 00:26:39.941
You know, you've, you've hit it on the head.
00:26:39.941 --> 00:26:50.585
There is that quality of life versus quantity and I think, as humans, you know we want them to live as long as possible.
00:26:50.585 --> 00:26:53.128
Of course we do, because we've got them for companionship.
00:26:53.128 --> 00:27:03.307
But for me, it's much more important that the animals are emotionally cared for, for their emotional needs.
00:27:03.307 --> 00:27:09.019
You know their behavior and social needs are so important and I do think it's.
00:27:09.340 --> 00:27:21.430
You know it makes for uncomfortable conversations, but you know, as I said with our kids, they had to prove to me that they were going to look after the, the gerbils, and they looked after them really well.
00:27:21.430 --> 00:27:27.039
I mean, there were times, obviously, that I ended up clearing them out and as, as we always do as parents.
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:56.491
But you know, I think it's this the fact that people think that they're entitled to have any animal they want without going through that process of am I the right person to have that animal, you know, and I think that meeting animals behavioral and social needs is is hugely lacking, actually, for a lot of animals that are kept as pets.
00:27:56.491 --> 00:28:04.006
I would love there to be a test that people had to pass if they ever wanted any animal.
00:28:04.006 --> 00:28:16.555
So yeah, just you know this, this proof of can you meet its needs and be honest with yourself, you know you know, that's the key.
00:28:17.256 --> 00:28:18.497
That's the fundamental thing.
00:28:18.497 --> 00:28:19.337
Yeah, you might want.
00:28:19.337 --> 00:28:21.361
We've all got things we want.
00:28:21.361 --> 00:28:38.393
I want another dog, I would love another dog, but I cannot meet its needs because I travel too much and I'm single now so I don't have someone that I can leave the dog with and a lot of my friends work.
00:28:38.393 --> 00:28:39.555
So you have to be honest with yourself.
00:28:39.555 --> 00:28:41.358
Can I look after this animal?
00:28:41.358 --> 00:28:42.922
Can I meet its five welfare needs?
00:28:42.922 --> 00:28:44.946
Do I know what its five welfare needs are?
00:28:44.946 --> 00:28:48.555
And if I can't, then it's not the right pet for me.
00:28:48.555 --> 00:28:57.244
And you know, and I think it takes it takes a lot for people to actually to go through that cognitive process and be honest.
00:28:57.244 --> 00:29:01.911
You know we can all ask the questions, but we've got to actually act on the answers.
