Feline Fear of People

Introduction

Key Points

The cat should not be restrained or forced to remain in proximity to people it is afraid of. It must be given opportunities to escape from situations it finds alarming, and provided with free access to a safe area that includes all necessary resources within easy access. The kinds of people, types of clothing and patterns of behaviour that elicit most fear should be identified. Controlled exposure (desensitisation & counterconditioning) may be used to condition the cat to tolerate the types of people it is afraid of Identify the types of person of which the cat is most fearful. The solution may not be to treat the cat, but to educate the owner to accept that the cat should be allowed to avoid people (such as visitors).

For general discussion on feline fear please see Feline Fear Overview. The basis of pet ownership is the bond people feel with their pets. Clients expect that the positive feelings that they, and others, have for the pet will be reciprocated. So, fear related problems in cats are a source of distress for owners, who cannot understand why a cat is avoidant of them and their visitors. Since the cat's primary means of coping with threat are avoidance and escape, aggression is less likely with cats than it would be with dogs. However, with the wrong approach and enough perseverance, any fear-related problem can progress to aggression. Since aggressive attacks by cats can cause serious injuries, once aggress is seen the whole style of treatment must change and some cat owners will be reluctant to proceed at all, so it is vital that the cat is not unintentionally provoked.

Fear of people is more likely in poorly socialised cats or those that have been threatened or harmed by people in the past. Cats that are feral and have had no early rearing experience with people are a significant challenge and may be unsuitable as domestic pets. Cats that have a good early socialisation history but which have developed fear as a result of one or two aversive events may be easier to treat initially, but they often present a greater challenge as the full extent of the range of human-related stimuli they react to (clothing, size, vocal tone) becomes apparent over time.

Fear may be confined to specific situations, such as handling or when approached, touched or picked up, with cats being relatively relaxed around people at other times. The main barrier to treating these kinds of problems is that it is often difficult to persuade owners to adopt a respectful and systematic approach; many owners will continue to try to handle and pick up frightened cats, which increases their intolerance and mistrust of people.

Prevention

Studies, such as those by McCune, indicate that fearfulness/boldness is a heritable trait that is strongly influenced by paternity, and that willingness to approach and interact with unfamiliar people and objects is strongly influenced by experience during the sensitive period of development. Since the ‘socialisation’ period of the cat ends at around 7 weeks, breeders must take responsibility for exposing kittens to a wide range of people and other species before homing.

Owners seeking to acquire a kitten should be advised that:

• Kittens that are the progeny of aggressive or fearful parents should be avoided.
• Kittens that are reared in domestic environment, with exposure to unfamiliar people and a range of typical domestic stimuli and events are those which are most likely to develop without fear and anxiety problems.

This acquiring an adult cat, for example from a shelter, should be advised that:

• When introducing new cats to the home, they should be provided with a secure space that includes all resources (food, water, latrine sites) and a number of hiding places.
• The cat should be allowed to become confident in its environment before introducing it to people.
• Handling should be minimised until the cat has begin to approach and interact with people voluntarily.

Feral cats may have great difficulty adapting to a domestic setting, and should not be taken on by inexperienced owners, or without support from a shelter that has experience of rehabilitating them.

Diagnosis

Fear of people is apparent from the pattern of avoidance behaviour and the cat’s body postures. The specific nature of the fear problem should be thoroughly investigated including:

• Temperament of the cat's parents and siblings (if known).
• Rearing history.
• Characterisation of the cat's response to people.
• Change in the response to people over time (starting with responses during development)
• Types of people, features of appearance and kinds of activity the cat reacts to.
• Details of the owner’s previous attempts to treat or manage the problem, including their reactions to the cat’s fearful behaviour

Treatment

The most important first step is to determine the owner's expectations and what might actually be achievable. Treatment is likely to involve a significant level of compromise by the owners, as it is unlikely that attempting to completely resolve a fear of people will be either successful or in the interest of the cat. Owners have to accept that avoidance is normal in cats and that that cat a fearful cat is unlikely to become highly sociable.

A treatment programme will include a combination of:

• Client education
• Provision of avoidance and escape opportunities
• Controlled exposure (desensitisation and counterconditioning)
• Psychoactive medication
• Pheromones

Facial and flank pheromones are used by cats to mark their core territory; an area in which cats do not expect to encounter hostility from conspecifics. Behavioural therapy involving controlled exposure is best performed in an environment where the cat already feels secure, such as within its core territory. The use of synthetic analogue of F3 (Feliway) may enhance this core territory effect, to help provide a setting within which behavioural therapy can take place. However, studies have indicated that the "calming" effect of the synthetic pheromone does not necessarily increase tolerance of handling and other procedures, so behavioural therapy must still respect the tolerance limitations of the individual cat.

There is some evidence that a synthetic analogue of the F4 fraction of feline facial marking pheromone (Felifriend) is applied to the person acting as the stooge and the environment is one in which an F3 diffuser (Feliway) is operating. However, F4 should be used with care as it can induce panic in cats that already have memories of specific aversive events involving people. These cats experience a dissonance between the visual stimulus associated with threat and danger, and the pheromone cue that signals familiarity.

If the cat has already shown different levels of fear according to the appearance of the people it has encountered, then a list should be made of the features of appearance the cat tolerates least. Typically, animals least like tall people wearing dark clothing, hats or hoods, because these make them seem more threatening. This enables therapy to start with people who dress and behave in the ways that the cat is most likely to accept. A good starting point is to start with female volunteers sitting down and wearing light coloured casual clothing. Cats that show signs of fear when they hear unfamiliar voices may be desensitised to these noises using recordings or radio programmes. The benefit of using desensitisation and counterconditioning procedures for cats with a fear of people is that, with some co-operation, we can control many aspects of the person’s behaviour whilst in the presence of the cat. The cat can be desensitised or habituated to a variety of different human appearances using different clothes and other paraphernalia such as walking sticks, hats and glasses. This means that only a relatively small number of volunteers is needed.

Desensitisation to the presence of a person will be most rapid if that person can remain as still as possible without watching the cat at all. This effectively makes the person inanimate and without any intention towards the cat.

As the cat becomes confident with several different people dressed on different occasions in a wide selection of clothes, the next stage is for the cat to encounter these same people while they are standing up. This will make them appear larger and therefore more dangerous. In successive stages the volunteers should begin to move about slowly, then more rapidly, but always remaining disinterested in the cat.

Treatment Summary:

• Make a list of the types and appearances of people that the cat is fearful of, placing them in order of the degree of fear elicited.
• Prepare a quiet and familiar environment for training, allowing the cat to get used to this in advance of training. Provision of F3 diffusers in this environment will increase the perceived sense of security. The cat should have resting places and boltholes where it can avoid contact if it wishes.
• Desensitise or countercondition the cat to elements of the stimuli it fears separately: sight, sound, smell and movement of the animal.
• Psychoactive medication may help behaviourally inhibited cats or those that are too apprehensive to commence training (Selegiline).
• DO NOT CARRY THE CAT INTO A TRAINING SITUATION AS THIS MAY TRIGGER AGGRESSION. Instead, bring it in in a carry box, or allow it to enter from another room on a harness and extending leash.

Prognosis

The prognosis depends very much upon the client’s ultimate expectations for the cat. If they expect to have a reasonably sociable house pet but are willing to accept that the cat may hide occasionally when visitors come to the home, then they may be satisfied with the results of behavioural therapy.

Indicators of a poor prognosis:

• Cat with poor socialisation history, or parents or siblings with known fear or anxiety problems.
• Non-compliant owner(s) with unreasonable expectations.
• Previous use of coercive methods to overcome problem (e.g. forced handling)
• Longstanding problem.
• A home environment that does not led itself to providing the cat with avoidance/escape opportunities (e.g. open plan or confined).
• Busy, chaotic household.