Pet Cats Really Bond with Their Owners, Says New Study

Domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) form attachments with their owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers, a new study from Oregon State University shows.

Pet cats show a similar capacity for the formation of secure and insecure attachments towards human caregivers previously demonstrated in children and dogs. Image credit: Pexels.

“In both dogs and cats, attachment to humans may represent an adaptation of the offspring-caretaker bond,” said study lead author Dr. Kristyn Vitale, a researcher in the Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences at Oregon State University.

“Attachment is a biologically relevant behavior. Our study indicates that when cats live in a state of dependency with a human, that attachment behavior is flexible and the majority of cats use humans as a source of comfort.”

One revealing way to study human attachment behavior is to observe an infant’s response to a reunion with their caregiver following a brief absence in a novel environment.

When a caregiver returns, secure infants quickly return to relaxed exploration while insecure individuals engage in excessive clinging or avoidance behavior.

Similar tests had been run before with primates and dogs, so Dr. Vitale and colleagues decided to run the same test, only this time with cats.

During the test, an adult cat or kitten spent two minutes in a novel room with their caregiver followed by two minutes alone. Then, they had a two-minute reunion.

Behavioral experts watched recordings of the tests and classified the cats’ actions.

Of the 70 kittens that were classifiable, 64.3% were categorized as securely attached and 35.7% were categorized as insecurely attached.

Adult cats nearly mirrored the kitten population — 65.8% secure and 34.2% insecure.

The results show that cats bond in a way that’s surprisingly similar to infants. In humans, 65% of infants are securely attached to their caregiver.

“Once an attachment style has been established between the cat and its caregiver, it appears to remain relatively stable over time, even after a training and socialization intervention,” Dr. Vitale said.

“Cats, like most domesticated animals, retain several juvenile traits into maturity and remain dependent on humans for care.”

The researchers are now exploring the importance of this work in relation to the thousands of kittens and cats that wind up in animal shelters.

“We’re currently looking at several aspects of cat attachment behavior, including whether socialization and fostering opportunities impact attachment security in shelter cats,” Dr. Vitale said.

The findings were published in the journal Current Biology.

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Kristyn R. Vitale et al. 2019. Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans. Current Biology 29 (18): 864-865; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.08.036