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when your dog dies, does your cat grieve? science says yes
study of felines finds they sleep less, play less, meow more and seek attention when another cat (or even a dog) in the house passes away
aug 13 2024
3 minute read
a cat and what science (and probably cats themselves) refers to as a "preferred associate."
getty
losing a pet is like losing a member of your family. when it happens, everyone in the family feels it. but what about other pets?
in the cheekily titled paper “is companion animal loss cat-astrophic? responses of domestic cats to the loss of another companion animal,” scientists brittany greene and jennifer vonk of oakland university in michigan suggest that not only do cats feel the loss of another pet in the household, they demonstrate those feelings. the paper appears in the latest issue of applied animal behaviour science.
to test the hypothesis, the researchers recruited 412 cat caregivers (and 452 cats) to report on their feelings and the perceived feelings of the felines following the death of another companion animal in the household.
while admitting the study is less scientific than one might prefer — they caution against “anthropomorphism in the projection of caregiver grief onto surviving companion animals” — the researchers were able to report that cat caregivers saw a decrease in their cats sleeping, eating and playing following the death of another pet.
they also noticed higher levels of attention-seeking behaviour, particularly among cats with a higher level of attachment to their owners, and also those who had lived longer with the deceased animal.
what’s more, the species of the deceased animal didn’t seem to matter.
“cats did not respond significantly differently to the loss of a companion dog or another cat,” the researchers wrote, noting: “despite different communication signals, dogs and cats can live peacefully together.”
they added: “many cats and dogs sharing a household were reported to sleep and play together. therefore, cats could have also responded to losing a positive relationship with a dog as a possible interspecific ‘preferred associate.'” (this sounds like the term a cat would use when referring to a dog or possibly even its owner.)
numerous studies on dogs have shown similar responses to the death of another pet. however, the researchers write, “this is only the second known exploration of domestic cats’ responses to the death of another companion animal and reveals that cats exhibit similar grief-like behavioural changes following such deaths compared to dogs examined in previous work.”
this is something of a surprise, given that cats have been domesticated much more recently, descend from a different evolutionary branch and express themselves differently than dogs. “whereas dogs, descended from pack animals, might reasonably respond more strongly to the death of a conspecific, cats under human care have adapted to live among conspecifics and their capacity to respond to the loss of a companion warrants further study,” they wrote.
but other studies — ok, that one other study — did also show changes in behaviour among dogs and cats alike, including attention seeking, increased time spent in the deceased companion animal’s “favourite spot,” seeming to look for the animal and, in the case of cats, louder and more frequent vocalizations following the loss.
the study had many potential pitfalls, as the researchers themselves pointed out. caregivers might project their own grief onto their cats. they might seek comfort from the cat and thus be more likely to notice the cat’s behaviour. or it could be that the caregivers’ grief, rather than that of the cats themselves, altered the surviving cats’ behaviours.
even so, they write: “the current study adds to the very limited data on social cognition of cats. researchers are only beginning to address the paucity of empirical data on nonhuman understanding of death — particularly in cross-species interactions — and the current study adds to this growing area by showing that cats may be impacted by the death of companions and more strongly so when they have spent more time engaged in more activities and have more positive relationships with the lost companion.”
they add: “our results are consistent with the idea that cats may experience the loss of companion animals in ways similar to what dogs experience despite having evolved from a less social ancestor, and may contribute to shifts in our conceptualization of cats as asocial and aloof.”
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