Owner Perspectives of Cat Handling Techniques Used in the Veterinary Clinic.

Abstract

An online cross-sectional survey was used to assess cat owner attitudes towards 12 cat handling techniques used during veterinary appointments. Likert-scale questions were designed to assess level of agreement with handling techniques when the participants' cat is calm, fearful, or aggressive. We examined the influence of participant's cat attachment and demographic information on agreement towards common handling techniques. Overall, participants (n = 1754) disagreed with higher restraint techniques such as full body with scruffing, and agreed with lower restraint methods such as minimal restraint and use of towels, regardless of cat demeanor. Logistic regression models revealed that participants were more likely to disagree with the use of full body restraint with scruff on fearful cats if they had a higher pet attachment score (p = 0.002), were residents of the US (p = 0.003), or were between the ages of 51-70 years of age (p = 0.001). Owner agreement with techniques involving a lower degree of restraint during routine veterinary procedures provides further support for current recommendations encouraging handlers to use these techniques with cats, and to avoid methods requiring a higher degree of restraint.