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VETSCOPE LIVE
Vol 1 Basic of Behavioral Medicine
What is the role of behavioral medicine and how to increase the quality of daily practice by using it?
Mami Irimajiri, BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVB
Veterinary Specialties and Emergency Center, Saitama, Japan

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Hello!
- Name: Mami Irimajiri
- Specialty: Veterinary Behavior (Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists)
- Education: Nippon Veterinary and Life Science Univ (BVSc)
Purdue University (PhD) University of Georgia (residency)

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Picture and Video

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Today’s talk
- What is veterinary behavior?
- Why behavior medicine is important?
- Know cat’s behavior and how to deal with litterbox related behavior problems

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What is veterinary behavior?
- Similar to human psychiatry
- Is the problem from medical? Learned? Or psychological?

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Why this field is more important these days?
- Epidemiologically, we need to deal with behavior problems to save pets’ lives
- Knowing behavior and educating owners is important because many false information are out on internet that owners are more confused with many information

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Felis Silvestris Catus

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When cats came to live with humans?
-We used to think that 3600 years ago, Egyptians started to live with cats
-In Cyprus, cat’s bone was found buried with human in 9500 years ago tombs
-Cats might came from Israel, Lebanon area
(JD Vigne et al. Early taming of the cat. 2004. Science 304. )

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From where did cats come from?

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HAVE CATS, WILL TRAVEL
Scientific American 300, 68 - 75 (2009) doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0609- 68

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The Near Eastern Origin of Cat Domestication
Cats’ ancestor is Felis Sylvestris Lybica

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Domesticated cats can live in social
- If food resources exist enough, they will live in social group
- Cats will create preferred associates
- Cats will communicate to each other

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Preferred associates
[determined by relative frequency within 1 meter (Wolfe 2001)]
- Pairs can be
- Male-male
- Female-female
- Male-female

- Number of the cats in group can be more than 2

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Preferred associates
- Allogroom
- Allorub
- Be near by and rest together

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Allogrooming

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Video
2:45:46 PM

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Rest together

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Allorubbing

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Tail up!= Friendly hello!

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Dominance

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Submissive

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Fear aggression

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Picture

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Video
Describing dominance behaviour

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Play

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Play behavior is important
- Social behavior
- Play can contain
- Fight, pray, flight, chase, coitus
- Cats (and other animals) will learn behavior repertoires from play behavior

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Video

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Tell the cat owners to play with their cats
- Get toys for the cats
- Provide play session for the cats

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Video

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Video ???. 11 2001

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House soiling problem in cats

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If cat is not using its litterbox...
1. Medical problem
2. Disliking his/her litterbox
3. Marking/ spraying

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Is the behavior urination or spray?
Urination
Marking behavior

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Problem with litterbox

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Points to consider when house soiling is occurring
1. Size of the litterbox
2. Cover
3. Litter
4. Location
5. Number of the boxes

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1. Size
- Toilet behavior
- Sniff
- Dig
- Urinate
- Cover
- Walk away

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1. Size
- Bigger size is better
- If there is no big cat’s litter at the store, utilize storage box from Walmart type store

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too small!

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2. Cover
- Small covered toilet is not good!

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Litter
- Most of the cats like fine litter rather than huge grain
- Substrate preference exist

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4. Location
- Quiet
- Not too far from their core area
- Locate in complete dark is not the best

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5. Number of the litterbox
- They like clean box
- They like to have more than one
- # of cats in the household plus one is ideal
- But for multiple cats household, at least # of group is a good start

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Does my cat like our box?
1. Standing on the edge of the box
2. No digging and no covering
3. Running out from the box
If these behavior is seen, you might want to reconsider your cats’ box

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Courtesy Dr. Nagataki

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If spraying?
- Marking behavior
- Communication tool
- First, consider neutering the cats
- Then consider about the relationship with other cat

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Any questions?