Attention: Cat at home

According to the report published by FEDIAF (European Pet Food Industry) in June 2024, there are 166 million households in the European Union with animals in responsible care.

Spain has approximately 5.9 million cats as pets; France has almost 15 million felines in a home and the United Kingdom has nearly 12 million, according to 2023 figures published by the Statista portal.

The cat through time

Around 3000 BC, “cats occupied a prominent place in the daily life of the Egyptians, playing multiple roles. They were appreciated for their effectiveness in protecting granaries, eliminating rodents, defending against vermin such as snakes and scorpions, and also as companions for human beings,” say Esther Pedraza and Almudena Díaz-Miguel in the book Gatos. Los felinos que dominan el mundo.

The figure of the cat has been venerated; it has been included in religious texts, represented on ancient coins, dating back to 500 BC in Italy: In Chinese culture, cats are valued as symbols of fortune, and in Thailand the Siamese cat is considered a pure and sacred being.

On the other hand, there is also “the stigma that accompanies the cat that it is individualistic, treacherous, self-interested, independent and that is not true, that it is asocial and that is not true. What happens is that it is expressed in another way. When I say ‘it is not true’, it is not that I say it; it is that research has shown us that the cat is also a social animal, that the cat has social cognition, that it has high capacities for social relationships. So, that label that has been placed on it and that precisely because of that, it has been mistreated in many ways, and many people have respect or fear of them or consider them to be of a lower category than the dog. Science is telling us the opposite: that they have the ability to communicate, the problem is that we are not trained for it; that they are capable of creating very powerful bonds with cats, dogs and humans; that they even suffer from separation anxiety when they cannot be with their human reference; that the bond they feel, especially with a person, is the equivalent of that which a preverbal infant establishes with its mother. We are their social references; that if you are nervous and feel bad, they catch that. So, we cannot say that they are not social; what happens is that we are not perceiving those capacities that they have. They are social and they need us, and thanks to the fact that they are like that, they contribute a lot to us,” says Paula Calvo, director of antrozoloogia.com (a consultancy and academy in the field of animal ethology, animal welfare and anthrozoology) in an interview for Canal Allabor.

Dr. Calvo grew up in an environment surrounded by pets who were respected and were another member of the family, so now she tries to “make society understand that we are a multi-species society and that we will only be well if we respect each other and take care of each other,” she says.

However, she goes on to say that, even if “you don’t have that tendency from your cultural base and family base, it may be born in you anyway, and it has to do with the fact that we are human species, that we are animals that have evolved in nature.”

Arrival at a new home

When a cat arrives in a strange territory, now its new home, Paula Calvo, researcher at the Animals and Society Chair at the Rey Juan Carlos University, recommends “not believing any of the myths that accompany cats. Nor is it the easy pet; it requires another type of dedication, another type of effort, time and changes in your habits, in your home. Adapting to a life with a cat and thinking that it is the easy pet, no, out with it; We must banish that idea. Starting from there, what I would recommend is that they learn the language of the cat because it is very subtle but it is there. We know that cats have, in a very recent study from the end of 2024, that they show more than 300 facial expressions. It is also important to learn to respect the cat's timing, understand what the cat's natural behaviors are and understand that we can also redirect them towards a coexistence that is comfortable for everyone. But redirecting means time and patience."

Well-being for all

The feline bonding education imparted by the president of APMEA (Spanish Multidisciplinary Professional Association of Applied Ethology), Paula Calvo, does not focus only on the cat's behavior but on the bond with the family and vice versa, as well as on the family itself. The objective is for the coexistence to be the best possible and successful, so that it does not end in abandonment or neglect, among other actions.

Today, February 20, International Cat Day, we celebrate their company with responsibility and dedication.