Author: Grace Carroll, Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Welfare, School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast

DimaBerlin/Shutterstock Around 15 years ago, I created a Facebook page for my cat, Sandi. Friends thought it was weird. Today, social media accounts for cats attract millions of followers, cats travel in backpacks and prams, and surveys consistently show that the overwhelming majority of owners regard their pets as family. I’ve previously written about how […]

Africa Studio/Shutterstock Domestication has made cats and dogs more diverse, but also curiously alike – with serious implications for their health and welfare, new research shows. At first glance, Persian cats and pugs don’t seem like they’d have much in common. One’s a cat, the other’s a dog, separated by 50 million years of evolution. […]

larisa Stefanjuk/Shutterstock Dogs are sociable, enthusiastic and widely used to comfort people in settings like hospitals, schools and care homes. But an increasingly popular alternative is emerging: therapy cats. The term is often used loosely in the media and inconsistently within the scientific community. But in its strictest sense, animal-assisted therapy is a structured activity […]

Pedigree cat breeding has long had its controversies but a new trend for cats bred to look like American bully XL dogs could be one of the most worrying fads yet. So-called “bully cats” originated in the US and are a result of mutant breeding. Unlike pedigree breeding, which focuses on keeping animals purebred, mutant […]

As we grieve the loss of a pet, we may not be the only ones feeling the pain. Research is showing that cats who are left behind when another animal in their home dies could be mourning along with us. Grief is a well-documented human response to loss – but its roots may be far […]