Behövs kattetologer på djursjukhus i Sverige?

Sammanfattning: Behaviour problems are often behaviours that cat owners don´t like, but are normal to the cat. The reason to why cat owners experience certain feline behaviours as problematic is probably due to the current practice in cat housing. The ways that cats are kept today causes somewhat of a compromise between cat and owner and inhibits the expressions of the cat's natural and normal behaviour. The cat owners may misunderstand their cats behaviour, for example the cat owners believe that their cats perform certain behaviours because of feelings of guilt, hate, revenge or maybe to protest against something or someone. An animal hospital may help solve behaviour problems, but also help the cat owners to undstand their cat´s behaviour in an other perspective. The aim of this study is to investigate the need of a cat ethologist in animal hospitals. To see if there is a need for this, a questionnaire was made, which was send to 7 large animal hospitals in Sweden. The questionnarie was directed to the staff who are responsible for the animal hospitals first contact with cat owners who have cats with behaviour problems. In the guestionnaire the staff had to answer questions about the first contact with the cat owners and if they would find a cat ethologist a useful asset to the staff. All animal hospitals answered that they recieved questions regarding behaviour problems in cats. From my results it seems common that cat owners ask questions about behaviour problems. In certain animal hospitals there were already staff hired with specialites in animal behaviour. In the animal hospitals where there were no one with such expertice employed who could answer behaviour guestions, all agreed upon the need of someone they could consult guestions about behvaiour, and they also felt it would be good if there were someone to whom cat owners could be refered to.