DECODING DOMESTIC CATS – A VIDEO-BASED OBSERVATIONAL STUDY ON ALLOGROOMING IN MULTICAT HOUSEHOLDS

In domestic cats, allogrooming is generally viewed as a sign of social bonding; however, empirical support for this is scant. We performed a video-based observational study to examine the function(s) of allogrooming in cats. Videos of 106 cats from 53 two-cat households were collected. Two trained observers performed behavioural observations with an ethogram. Inter- and intra-observer agreement were strong (Cohen’s Kappa ≥0.78). Analysis included sequential analysis aimed at identifying patterns within the interactions. The Lag Sequential Analysis function in The Observer XT (Noldus, version 16) was used to calculate the number of transitions between behaviours (state-lag = lag order + 1). Behaviours with a low (<10) total transition sum were removed and transition probabilities for the remaining inter-subject transitions were calculated. Transitions with a probability above 15% were retained and revealed two major patterns around allogrooming: (1) physical contact seeking (often mutual) precedes allogrooming; (2) allogrooming precedes rotation of the ears in the receiver cat, which is associated with a play-agonism-like sequence with mutual wrestling, interactive body postures, pawing and biting. Furthermore, Fisher’s exact tests with Bonferroni correction were used to test non-randomness of transitions (R version 4.3.2), indicating 13 transitions with high likelihood, of which the most significant ones (P <0.001) were physical contact behaviour to allogrooming, non-interactive body posture to sniffing and four reciprocal behaviours (i.e. behaviour in one cat is followed by the same behaviour in the other cat): wrestling, displays of interactive body postures, staring and autogrooming. Our results illustrate the complexity of cat–cat interactions and point towards multiple social functions for allogrooming. These insights are important to a better understanding of social dynamics in cats, with the potential to benefit cat welfare in multi-cat households.