Is your cat stressed out or actually sick? A study conducted by the Ohio State University suggests that healthy cats may act sick when there is a significant change in their routine.
When the healthy cats experienced a “unusual external event”, they exhibited sickness behaviors just as frequently as cats who had been diagnosed with an illness. The “unusual external events” included a change in feeding schedule or caretaker. The change in healthy cats behavior include refusing food, vomiting, and not using a litter box.
Interestingly enough, this study did not begin with the intention of researching this behavior. It developed as a result of the observation that over time, the group of cats being treated for interstitial cystitis appeared healthier than a group of other “healthy” cats being housed at the university medical center.
The study was published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Veterinary Association.
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- Why Cats Might Need a Day at the Spa [Life Lines] (scienceblogs.com)
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