Validation of A Questionnaire for Assessment of Iraqi Domestic Cat’s Behavior

Abstract

Over the past decade or so, cats have moved into position as the most popular companion animal. Even in the Middle East and Iraq, the number of domestic cats has multiplied rapidly over the past couple of years. They are easy to keep, and unlike dogs, there are no cultural restrictions on keeping cats. With society not properly educated about cat’s behavior and its problems which crucially to investigate the current situation in our country since no such studies have been done so far. Therefore, in this study we tried to create a local tool for assessment of cat behavior. An Arabic questionnaire containing 51 behavioral questions and basic questions regarding the cats' demographic characteristics was locally designed for this purpose. The questionnaire was published online for cat owners to fill out expressing their cats’ behavior using Google forms. One hundred of ninety four cat owners participated in the study. Reliability statistics showed that our questionnaire was reliable with an Alpha Cronbach 0.86. Fourteen factors were extracted using factor analysis which included 42 items which accounted for 51.3% of the variance. This validated questionnaire presents the most behavioral aspects of cats that can safely be used for evaluation of cats’ behavior for practical and scientific purposes in the future inside Iraq.