Purrs In Our Hearts - Cat Forum UK

Cat Health & Behaviour => Health & Behaviour General => Topic started by: SalMarie on July 20, 2015, 14:10:47 PM

Title: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 20, 2015, 14:10:47 PM
Who? :-:
A postgrad vet studying for a MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Newcastle University.

What? :-:
A short survey of British cat owners:
• aims to investigate the under-researched area of people's understanding* of their cats' behaviour.

How? :innocent:
• Your help would be greatly appreciated for this important study
• less than 10 minutes to complete!

Where? ;D
• www.surveymonkey.com/r/4catspls

All responses are completely confidential.

A summary of the research findings will be available on request in October.

Thank you!

*How people perceive and care for their cats may be a factor in the development of behavioural issues:
• a problem for the owner and/or a welfare issue for the cat.
Modern lifestyles and changing expectations may put pressure on the human-cat bond leading to more people giving up cats to rescue centres
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Gill (sneakiefeline) on July 20, 2015, 15:59:52 PM
Completed.

We have a lot asking us to complete surveys on Purrs for education reasons but most are pretty dire!

This one however is one of the best I have seen, good luck with your MSc and we would be greatful if you would post the results on Purrs  ;D ;D
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 20, 2015, 16:20:15 PM
Thank you! Very much appreciated. I will most certainly post a summary of the results (or a link to them) in October. Or before if I'm quicker than expected....
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Lyn (Slugsta) on July 20, 2015, 17:33:33 PM
Done.
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: hollycat on July 20, 2015, 18:52:28 PM


Done  ;D
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Dawn F on July 20, 2015, 19:03:22 PM
done
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Sue P (Paddysmum) on July 20, 2015, 19:14:23 PM
Also done.  Will be really interesting to see your findings.  Good  luck with your MSc.   :)
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: bickhamwitch on July 20, 2015, 22:40:14 PM
Was half done when someone decided to run across keyboard and shut computer down. Try again!
Julie.
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 21, 2015, 10:29:23 AM
Thank you Julie! I'm sure 'someone' was just trying to be helpful  :) I hope SurveyMonkey let you finish. The survey is going quite well, but so far the best response has been from guys off a mountain bike forum!! Any suggestions for another friendly site with a few ladies who might be interested in finding about how knowledgable people are about their cats?   :thanks: to everyone!
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: bickhamwitch on July 21, 2015, 11:14:43 AM
How about contacting Cat World, and Your Cat magazines. They have thousands of readers hopefully many with computers.
Julie.
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 21, 2015, 11:21:13 AM
 :thanks: Julie, will have a go. Have tried Catchat, but they're not chatting with me! :shy:
 
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Gill (sneakiefeline) on July 21, 2015, 11:54:56 AM
This ia an off the wall answer but try Leisure Painter, I dont know if you will find a place to post but........... also Purrs has a FB site whicj is pretty active

https://www.facebook.com/groups/91388455703/?fref=ts

I think you have to join as a member and if you have probs let me know and will get you in.
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 21, 2015, 12:02:57 PM
I love off the wall answers! Thank you again, I'll give that a go too. For CatChat, I've joined, and then emailed with all my details to request permission, and they said they would look at it. Today I posted to ask if I could put up the survey (I didn't post the survey), and that was deleted. They must think I'm being too impatient! But I do totally understand that they must get lots of these, so it can't be helped. And I am being a bit impatient  :innocent:
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Sue P (Paddysmum) on July 21, 2015, 13:11:24 PM
No, not "impatient" - "enthusiastic" - much better!!   :hug: 

Sometimes it's just that people have limited availability for responding.  I think what you're doing is great, and the more people it can be released to, the better.   :)

Have your tried Mumsnet?    And maybe Catster's facebook page? 
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Susanne (urbantigers) on July 21, 2015, 14:00:34 PM
have you posted on petforums?
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 21, 2015, 21:33:38 PM
CatChat have accepted the survey! And Mumsnet were very quick about replying; yes, on there too since yesterday. And the cat forum section of Pet Forums. Still 68% men and 32% women....not what I expected at all!!  I've not tried any FB pages yet as am a bit worried they might think I'm a spammer (? whatever one of those is). But may well be driven to trying. Have looked at various other pages like the Leisure Painter Forum (thank you Gill), but it's so difficult to find out who to ask! You've been really good to me here. Hopefully the results will be worth while.
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Tiggy's Mum on July 21, 2015, 22:15:29 PM
Done  ;D

Not sure if this could be a reason for your higher than expected male population...

When I was doing the survey (on a PC rather than phone/ipad), to move on to the next Q/click away from the text box I'd just completed I just clicked the mouse out of the box... when I came to the male/female Q I just clicked away from the previous Q and as my mouse pointer was near to the 'Male' answer (not on it) it auto-selected 'male'... I'm female and having read your post spotted this and corrected it to female.

May just be me with my dodgy technique but I would have expected the respondents to be 90% female, crazy cat ladies tend to be more prevalent than crazy cat men  :evillaugh:

PS There's a pet section on MoneySavingExpert (Martin Lewis MSE) which is fairly busy.

PPS Screenshot of survey (I cleared cookies to allow me to start to take it again, didn't submit it this time)... Even clicking away from the text box I just completed where the red circle is would select 'male'...
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: SalMarie on July 22, 2015, 17:40:06 PM
That's really helpful! I'll ask Survey Monkey about it. Although it does appear that most of the responses have come from the mountain bike community, and many will be male! Although not me  ;) Today trying on FaceBook....a whole new world  :Crazy:
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: Miroslav on July 22, 2015, 20:27:37 PM
Done
Title: Re: Understanding of feline behaviour: a survey for owners
Post by: emmmy_lou on July 23, 2015, 11:34:19 AM
Done it - quite interesting....