Gender differences in the social behavior of the neutered indoor-only domestic cat

The domestic cat exhibits a wide variety of social behavior. The aim of thi s experiment was to investigate factors which influence the affiliative and aggressive behavior of the indoor-only neutered domestic cat. Some 60 hous eholds comprised of either two males, two females or a male and female cat were observed. The cats were between 6 months and 8 years old, and were alw ays restricted to the indoors. Each pair of housemates was observed for 10 h. There were no significant differences in affiliative or aggressive behav ior based on cat gender. However, females were never observed to allorub ot her females. The male/male households did spend more time in close proximit y. The amount of time the cats had lived together was negatively correlated with the amount of aggression observed during the study. Factors such as s ize of the house and weight difference between the cats did not correlate w ith the aggression rate. Large standard deviations and the correlations of social behavior between housemates indicated the importance of individual d ifferences in behavior. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.