The Cat (eBook)

Bjarne O Braastad (Author) Bjarne O. Braastad is Professor emeritus of Ethology (behavioural biology) in the Faculty of Biosciences at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, where he worked for 37 years until 2020. He was born on a farm with several animal species, including five cats. For his MSc degree in ethology, he studied homing behaviour in cats, while his PhD in neurobiology was on development of visual brain cortex in cats. Since 1979, Bjarne has been working with research and teaching in animal behaviour and animal welfare, and during 2001-2015 also on animal-assisted interventions using farm animals for humans with mental diseases (termed Green Care). Bjarne's research work has comprised most farmed species incl. salmon, and a wide variety of ethological topics like prenatal stress, housing of farm animals, maternal behaviour, cognitive neurobiology, and human-animal interactions. Bjarne has supervised a number of master's projects on cat behaviour. He has a keen interest in dissemination of scientific knowledge to animal owners and the general public - in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, on internet as well as talks at meetings, particularly addressing cat owners. In 2013 he received his university's Research Dissemination Award for this work. In 1982, he initiated the foundation of The Norwegian Association of Cat Owners. Bjarne has a wife and two sons. The youngest one died at the age of 16 of acute leukaemia. This cat book is dedicated to him. Bjarne and his wife are enthusiastic folk dancers, and Bjarne chairs the local folkdance group.Anne McBride (Author) Anne McBride has a Psychology degree and PhD in animal behaviour from University College London. She has had a few cat teachers, notably Corky, named for her corkscrew shaped tail that had been broken in several places. A small, black non-pedigree unwanted kitten brought to the vets to be euthanised, where a young Anne was working as a Saturday helper. Instead, Corky found a home for the next 14 years! An Animal Behaviour and Training Council Registered Clinical Animal Behaviourist, she has been practising since 1987, and developed and ran for 20 years the first postgraduate course in this field at the University of Southampton. She continues to teach about Human-Animal Interactions at Southampton, and elsewhere, including teaching some of Bjarne's students about animal learning and training - with sessions to help them practice their skills by training new behaviours to cows! Her degree, experience as a clinician, and generally of life and people and her strong interest in the 'hows and whys' are central to her main goal in life. Namely, to help others become creative, yet critical thinkers in respect of animal (and human) behaviour and welfare. Her second goal is to grow older whilst never truly growing up, by continuing to learn, and laugh all the way to the end! As an aside, you will find Anne has books and papers published as Anne McBride, and as E. Anne McBrideRuth C Newberry (Author) Ruth C. Newberry is a Professor of Ethology in the Faculty of Biosciences at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her early years were spent on a farm near Ottawa, which had a resident cat colony. Before the cats were neutered, she saw first-hand the communal nursing of Tinkerbell and her adult daughter, and the comings and goings of the resident tomcat. As a zoology student at the University of Edinburgh, she was encouraged by Jane Goodall's writings to pursue the study of animal behaviour, leading to her PhD research in the Edinburgh Pig Park observing communal nursing in pig nests. After several years investigating chicken behaviour at the Agassiz Research Station in British Columbia, she journeyed south to join Washington State University's colleges of veterinary medicine and agriculture. There, she conducted studies on a wide range of animals including cats. Having finally habituated to cowboy hats in her classroom, the northern lights beckoned once more, this time to Norway. Here, since 2013, her research has focused on methods of environmental enrichment that foster harmonious social development and positive welfare. Ruth is a Past-President and Honorary Fellow of the International Society for Applied Ethology, and a member of several scientific advisory committees on animal welfare. A confirmed cat person meeting the personality traits described in Chapter 12, she has shared her home with a succession of beloved cats, Annapurra Katman, Cinnamon Daintree, Siena Kitkatla to name a few, whose unique personalities have provided inspiration during the writing of this book.

"Another book about cats, really?", you may think. And you would be right, were it not for the fact that the book by Braastad and colleagues does more than simply offer up a comprehensive overview of what is already written in other books. True, this book does supply classic chapters such as the ones on the origin of cats, cat communication and problem behaviours in cats.

However, it gives an update on those topics where possible, and also approaches cats from more contemporary angles, like cat personality (an aspect that is quickly gaining momentum in animal welfare science) and particularly the individual variation that must be considered alongside breed variation, the relationship between people and cats (including COVID and the lessons learned there), and how cats contribute to human health. I found that many chapters had nice surprises of content I was not expecting. The book in its entirety is a comprehensive combination of scientific knowledge, anecdotal information, and practical advice for cat owners, although the authors state that the book is also useful for others interested in the lives of cats and in caring for them (and I would agree).

In my opinion, this book is an important contribution to a much-needed shift in the attitude of people towards cats specifically and animals in general, from a culture of ownership and anthropocentrism to a culture of care.