Cats appear to grieve death of fellow pets – even dogs, study finds

US researchers say findings challenge view that cats are antisocial and suggest bereavement may be universal

Cats are often considered aloof, independent and fickle in their affections. But, research suggests, they also show signs of grieving after the death of another pet in the same household – even when it is the family dog.

Some cats struggled to sleep, went off their food or made yowling noises. Others were more needy around their caregivers or went off their favourite games, owners reported.

The team behind the work said the findings challenged the view that cats were antisocial and suggested that the psychological experience of loss might be universal.

“They [cats] engaged less in sleeping, eating and playing but more in seeking attention from humans and other pets, hiding, spending time alone and appearing to look for their lost companions,” the authors from Oakland University in the US wrote in their study, which was published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Mourning is a well-established phenomenon in the animal kingdom, with elephants, dolphins and chimpanzees, for example, performing complex behaviours such as guarding the body of a companion after death. A recent study by Italian researchers suggested the phenomenon extends to dogs, who displayed behaviour changes when another dog in the household died.

However, the Oakland University research said, it was less obvious that a cat would display signs of bereavement.

“Whereas dogs, descended from pack animals, might reasonably respond more strongly to the death of a conspecific, cats under human care have adapted to live among conspecifics and their capacity to respond to the loss of a companion warrants further study,” the authors wrote.

In the latest study, the caregivers of more than 450 cats who had another pet, either a cat or a dog, that died recently were asked about the living cat’s behaviour. In about two-thirds of cases the deceased pet was another cat and the rest were dogs.

“Unlike dogs, we tend to think that cats are aloof and not social,” Prof Jennifer Vonk, a comparative/cognitive psychologist at Oakland University and a co-author of the work, told the Times. However, she noted, in the wild cats tended to band together and form hierarchies. “I think we’ve been mischaracterising them,” Vonk added.

The study suggested that cats were more profoundly affected the longer they lived with their fellow pet, but witnessing the death, and the number of pets in the home did not have an impact.

“Time that companion animals spent together engaged in daily activities predicted greater grief-like behaviours and fearfulness, while more positive relationships between the surviving and deceased animals predicted decreases in sleeping, eating and playing,” the study said.

While the results support the idea that cats grieve, an alternative possibility is that owners are projecting their own heartache on to the surviving pet. “Consistent with this hypothesis, caregivers who experienced greater grief were more likely to report increases in their surviving cats’ sleep, spending time alone and hiding following the death,” they wrote.

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