Feline Behaviour and Welfare - Hardcover

"This book is another enrichment of the literature on behaviour of cats. It shows the urgent need for their protection worldwide; it improves our knowledge and understanding of their special life styles."-- (01/01/2013) "Fraser (formerly, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland, Canada) presents a commonsense discussion of feline behavior and welfare. The book largely focuses on domestic cats, although three chapters are devoted to a general discussion of a wide selection of wild species. In the context of this work, welfare primarily refers to general care of domesticated cats in the home setting--including some basic information on health care--as it pertains to an animal's overall well-being. Readers should appreciate that this is not a book about the ethics of animal rights. General audiences will easily understand most of the text, although the writing tends to be rather verbose and needlessly repetitious. The author does a good job of putting details of feline behavior into perspective to the overall mental and physical health of the domesticated cat; however, the brief discussion of anatomy and physiology is of more limited value, especially for laypersons, and is not well tied into its underlying role in driving behavior. A selection of 90 black-and-white photographs varies widely in quality. This book offers a general primer on cat behavior and home care and will primarily interest cat owners and feline enthusiasts. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergrates and two-year technical program students in veterinary fields."-- (04/01/2013)

Cats are the world's most popular domestic pet, as well as being wild animals. This comprehensive book on feline behaviour explores both the familiar domesticated animal and wild relatives such as the leopard, tiger and lynx to examine the Felidae family as a whole, allowing for fascinating comparisons between wild and domestic species and explanations of behaviour in pet cats with evolutionary origins. Fraser's work helps increase readers' understanding of cat behaviour - why they behave as they do, for what purpose and why. The focus is on identifying normal behaviour from the cat's perspective, with a welfare theme running throughout; as exhibitions of normal behaviour provide evidence of good welfare, and abnormal behaviour can be an indicator of poor welfare. Providing a veterinary perspective - by including coverage of feline physiology, life stages and reproduction - as well as an ethological one, this is an important read for veterinarians, shelter workers, animal behaviourists and students of veterinary medicine and animal welfare, while also being of interest to pet owners.