Exploring domestic cats' play motivation toward different types of cat toys

Abstract

Most of basic needs of domestic cats are met living in the environment full of water food warmth and coolness The exploratory behavior become great priority in cats life as it still need to fulfill its natural instinct having different types of toy enrich cats life and help maintain them in shape Cat toy as a cat product can fulfill their need to hunt releasing pressure during remedy and bonding human-cat relationship Its importance is rarely being mentioned and often neglected Yet most cat toys are designed to appeal to its owner rather than met the cats need from the perspective of texture size Behavioral experience is the focus of this study and is conducted with direct observation and focal-animal sampling From the process of regulating subjects procedure environment behaviors and experimental toy to unify the play rule to reduce the possible impact on influencing hunting behaviors A Cat-Toy-Type Standard from the perspective of High-Play motivation is proposed of statistically significances results Play motivation are influenced by different toy types showed by the results with most variety of Highly Play motivated behaviors are showed in Fishing-Rod Motor Whirl toy Stuffed toy Motor Mouse and Songbird which have the smallest and biggest size only showed 2 Highly Play motivated behaviors; while no Highly Play motivated behavior is showed from Intellectual toy Rank of High-Play motivation from Cat Toy Type is: Fishing-Rod> Motor Whirl> Stuffed= Motor Mouse= Songbird > Intellectual Experienced and Inexperienced also influenced the hunting behaviors with more aggression showed from Experienced cats exhibiting Killbite Hit and Kick Different size of toy also influenced the hunting behaviors with muzzle movement most showed in small size Cats Kick if it is large size Clutch if it is fast-moving and Chew if it is songbird sounding Most variety of behaviors are showed in slim size toy Some cats are disinterested in motorized toys which showed fixed pattern circulation which are less close to natural prey Random routes speed-shifting adding random stop seconds are recommended to simulate the natural prey

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chun-Heng Ho (Supervisor)