Effects of stressors on the behavior and physiology of domestic cats

Stella, Croney and Buffington experimentally exposed cats to unpredictable husbandry and other stressors, measuring sickness behaviours such as reduced eating, elimination outside the litter box, vomiting and decreased activity. Stressed cats showed more of these sickness behaviours, and healthy cats responded similarly to cats with feline interstitial cystitis, implicating environmental stress in a common chronic feline illness. The work, part of Buffington's broader research on stress and lower urinary tract disease, demonstrated that routine, predictability and environmental control are medically important, not merely nice to have. It underpins clinical guidance that environmental enrichment and stress reduction are first-line management for stress-associated feline diseases.