should prepare them for ‘ Day 1 ‘ in practice and 76.9 % said they felt it should , but only 26.8 % felt prepared [ 22 ] . VSs who have graduated from university and do not feel prepared for Day 1 may not feel they have enough knowledge to provide behaviour advice . Additionally , once veterinary medicine students have graduated , there is no obligation for them to undertake behaviourbased CPD . Not doing so could be a potential barrier to the treatment and management of behaviour issues and CDS for a feline patient . Further study into this area , in particular asking which university the VSs attended and whether they have undertaken any feline behaviour CPD , could help to identify why the VSs did not feel confident in giving behaviour advice to the cat ' s owner .
Conclusions
Based on the findings , the alternate hypothesis ( H1 ) would be accepted . The survey responses in this study showed that CDS in cats is underdiagnosed and undertreated . The VSs did not diagnose all of the cats showing signs of CDS with CDS , and cats with CDS were more likely to be euthanised than offered treatment and behaviour referral . Additionally , only a small proportion of the VSs would prescribe the recommended treatments and management strategies for CDS . Further investigation is needed into whether this was because the VSs were unaware of all the recommended treatments available in the UK and Ireland , or because this information was not included in the veterinary medicine degree they studied , or because they had not undertaken CPD in this area .
Based on the findings , the alternate hypothesis ( H2 ) would also be accepted . The responses to the survey in this study showed that owner compliance and attitudes towards senior cats with behaviour issues do impact on the treatment and management offered , but not in the way expected . It was predicted that behaviours with a greater impact on an owner ' s life , particularly house soiling , would make an owner less likely to comply with a treatment plan because it may take time and effort before seeing any improvement in the cat ' s behaviour . However , from the data in this study , the cat owners were in fact more likely to comply with a treatment plan if their cat was displaying house-soiling behaviours , which suggests that owners of senior cats are not as quick as expected to rehome or euthanise cats that are house soiling . This could be due to their relationship with , and degree of attachment to , their cat [ 11 ] . There were limitations in this study and a larger sample size would have enabled a more accurate representation of the views of the general population of VSs in the UK and Ireland .
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kerry Hunt for supervising this project and for all her help while I was studying Applied Animal Behaviour at Sparsholt . I would also like to thank my family for their support and motivation . And I ' d like to acknowledge my wonderful cat Kiki , who has been the inspiration behind everything cat-related that I have done . I would never have started veterinary nursing or undertaken my degree were it not for Kiki .
This article is based on the author ' s dissertation submitted for her BSc in Applied Animal Behaviour in March 2022 .
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