How to Tell if Fluffy Is in Pain, According to
the Experts
A new study identifies 25 ways to tell if your kitty isn’t
feeling well
(Fred de Noyelle / Godong/Godong/Corbis)
smithsonian.com
March
1, 2016
Cats may be adorable
little murderbeasts with ninja-like agility and
swords for fingers, but they’re not immune to pain. But
judging pain in cats, is often near impossible.
Cats can behave erratically at the best of times, making
it tough for their owners to detect injuries, sickness,
or other pain. Thankfully for cat lovers, a panel of 19
cat experts from around the world recently gathered to
assemble a set of telltale signs that Fluffy is hurting.
The panel compiled 25 behaviors which were published
recently in the journal PLOS One that could help you
figure out whether your cat is just being weird or if
the erratic behaviors might be a sign of something more
serious.
The behaviors, which include a lack of grooming, not
wanting to move, and hiding are each seemingly small
things on their own, but together could indicate that
your cat needs a checkup,
Daniel Oberhaus writes for Motherboard .
“Both owners and veterinarians are clearly able to
recognize many behavioral changes in cats which relate
to pain,” Daniel Mills, study co-author and professor of
veterinary behavioral medicine at the United Kingdom’s
University of Lincoln,
said in a statement . “However, owners may not always
recognize the clinical relevance of what they see. We
hope that having an agreed list of more objective
criteria, which relates to specific signs of pain, could
improve the ability of both owners and vets to recognize
it.”
According to Mills, this paper is the first time that
behavioral experts have been able to nail down these
behaviors. Funded by the British cat charity Feline
Friends, the study analyzed an initial list of 91
different behaviors, narrowing it down to 25 through a
process of categorization to judge how often the
behaviors were exhibited by sick or injured cats,
Rebecca Flood writes for The Independent .
“Cats are notorious for not showing that they are in
pain, and the more that we can find out what the signals
are, then the sooner we can get them to the vets for
diagnosis and treatment,” Feline Friends’ chairman,
Caroline Fawcett,
said in a statement .
There is still some variation on how much pain a cat can
be in before it shows these symptoms. Some of the
indicators, like a decrease in appetite, being grumpier
than usual, and not grooming, can show that your cat is
in some amount of pain. Meanwhile, avoiding bright
lights and groaning or growling indicate that Fluffy is
hurting pretty badly. Others, like hissing or trying to
scratch you could show some pain, but the researchers
determined that those behaviors depend too much on a
cat’s personality to tell whether it is a universal sign
of pain, Flood writes.
Keeping an eye out for these behaviors can help cat
owners know when it’s time to take a trip to the vet,
but for Mills the list is just a start. He hopes that
this list will be a foundations for future studies into
how cats express pain, especially in their faces,
Oberhaus writes.
(Isabella Merola, Daniel S. Mills)
Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-tell-if-fluffy-pain-according-experts-180958245/#yc72OmPtIcld6pjU.99
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