Demographics and husbandry of pet cats living in Sydney, Australia: Results of cross-sectional survey of pet ownership

Abstract

Our aim was to collect baseline data on the age, gender, breed, reproductive status and husbandry (housing, diet, vaccination, veterinary attention) of pet cats living in Sydney. Accordingly, a cross-sectional survey of 2768 households was conducted using a postal questionnaire. The 2006 Sydney residential phone book was used as the sampling frame. Nonresponders were re-mailed the questionnaire on two further occasions, two and four weeks after the first postings. Completed questionnaires were received from 884 households. No pets were kept by 387 (43.8%) respondents. Dogs and cats were owned by 295 (33.4%) and 198 (22.5%) of households, respectively, with 7.8% of households having both cat(s) and dog(s). Fish and birds were the next most popular pets. Of the 198 cat-owning households, 54.0% kept only cat(s), while 46.5% kept cats with other pets. The distribution of cat ownership across Sydney was non-uniform. Each cat-owning household kept 1.3 cats on average, with the majority keeping one (75.8% households) or two (18.7%). For the 260 cats, the mean age was 7.1 years, the median 6 years, with a range of 3 months to 22 years. There were significantly more female (143; 55%) than male cats (117; 45%). Only 7 cats (2.7%) were sexually entire, and these were all ≤ 6-years. Crossbred cats outnumbered pedigree cats by a ratio of 3.3:1. The Burmese was the most common breed, followed by the Persian. The median age of pedigree cats (5.5 years) was significantly lower than for domestic crossbred cats (7.0 years). Most cats were housed both indoors and outdoors (72.6%), with 19.7% being restricted to indoors and/or "pet park enclosures". Pedigree cats were significantly more likely than crossbreds to be housed indoors. Most cat owners fed their cats a combination of commercial dry and canned food (38.1%),  These authors contributed equally to this work

Caracterização demográfica de cães e gatos e perfil de seus respectivos guardiões domiciliados numa pequena cidade no sul do Brasil

“…Although similar results have been described in several Brazilian cities (ALVES et al, 2005;BRANCO et al, 2007;DOMINGOS et al, 2007;SERAFINI et al, 2008;CANATTO et al, 2012;MARTINS et al, 2013), it must be highlighted that all previous studies were done in cities that contained more than 100,000 residents. Nevertheless, similar results were also observed in Ireland (DOWNES et al, 2009), the Teramo Province of Italy (SLATER et al, 2008a), Texas, USA (RAMÓN et al, 2010), and Sydney, Australia (TORIBIO et al, 2009). These results suggest that dogs are currently the preferred household pets over cats within this region, probably because cats are not the predominant breed of domestic animals in Brazil (GENARO, 2010).…”

“…Alternatively, female cats were the predominant gender observed in investigations from Australia (TORIBIO et al, 2009) and Ireland (DOWNES et al, 2009), representing 55% (141/260) and 56.3% (108/192), respectively, of these feline populations. Interestingly, 97% and 79% of the female cats from the Australian and Irish studies, respectively, were neutered, with similar (71%) results of neutering described in Canada (LESLIE et al, 1994); while only 6.5% (17/260) of all cats from this study were neutered.…”

“…Interestingly, 97% and 79% of the female cats from the Australian and Irish studies, respectively, were neutered, with similar (71%) results of neutering described in Canada (LESLIE et al, 1994); while only 6.5% (17/260) of all cats from this study were neutered. The elevated level of neutering of female cats has been associated with an expected reduction in the feline population of Australia (BALDOCK et al, 2003;TORIBIO et al, 2009). While female cat neutering has been primarily aimed at decreasing pregnancy rates, prevention of fighting between roaming cats, and the reduced dissemination of disease between contact cats in Ireland (DOWNES et al, 2009).…”

“…These studies have investigated issues including the dog: human ratio (BUTLER; BINGHAM, 2000;PULCZER et al, 2013), canine ecology and demographics (KITALA et al, 2001;TORIBIO et al, 2009;ACOSTA-JAMETT et al, 2010), analyzed factors associated with pet ownership (LESLIE et al, 1994;DOWNES et al, 2009), and the reproductive status of pet cats (TORIBIO et al, 2009).…”

Understanding human factors involved in the unwanted cat problem

“…This is consistent with previous reports Finkler, Hatna and Terkel, 2011;Zito et al, 2015b). The proportions of owners in this study who displayed "responsible" caretaking behaviours were similar or slightly higher than those reported in other studies Toribio et al, 2009;, although it is difficult to make direct comparisons as the methodologies differed between studies.…”