Although cats are popular pets and often viewed as family members, many cat owners fail to meet their welfare needs. This failure may occur due to several factors, including a lack of awareness and education, a lack of time or interest, and not prioritising the welfare needs of a companion animal due to competing motivations. This study expands on previous research that identified common barriers to owners engaging in daily wand toy play with their pet cat. The Behaviour Change Wheel framework, including the COM-B model, were used to design an educational digital campaign to encourage cat owners to play with their cats daily by removing or reducing several of the identified barriers (COM relates to the three categories of barriers - Capability, Opportunity and Motivation which influence B – the target behaviour). Pre and post-intervention surveys were conducted before and after the campaign. Three hundred and sixty-three cat owners completed the matched surveys. Participants reported positive impacts within the survey, with 35.3 % reporting that they played with their cats more regularly with a wand toy because of the campaign. An additional 11.9 % intended to change how often they play this way with their cats. After the campaign, participants reported fewer Capability barriers ( S = −2442, p < 0.0001) and fewer Motivational barriers ( S = −2532, p < 0.0001) to interactive play. Participants also reported fewer behaviour problems in their cats after the campaign. Most participants found the campaign materials enjoyable. This study demonstrates the positive impact of a short, digital campaign to increase self-reported play behaviour of cat owners with their pets. • We surveyed individuals before and after a campaign encouraging daily play with a cat. • 35.3 % of participants reported playing with their cats more after the campaign. • Participants reported fewer Capability and Motivational barriers after the campaign. • Participants reported fewer behaviour problems in their cats after the campaign. • The campaign increased self-reported play behaviour of cat owners with their pets.

While some stress can be beneficial for survival, identifying drivers of detrimental stress is essential for improving animal welfare and reproductive outcomes in conservation breeding programs. We examined the interaction between housing and behavioral indicators of temperament, both of which may explain variability in markers of positive and negative (stress) welfare in a critically endangered bird, the ‘alalā (Hawaiian crow; Corvus hawaiiensis ). During the 2019 breeding season, we collected behavioral data, including markers of negative welfare (e.g. alarm calling and pace flying), positive welfare (e.g. foraging and preening), and four temperament-like traits (aggression, social connectedness, restfulness, and shy/boldness), on 26 mated pairs engaged in varying breeding stages at a conservation breeding center in Hawaiʻi. All pairs were housed in one of two housing setups: 1) a two-compartment, "breeding" aviary (predicted to be less stressful due to relative seclusion and single-pair occupancy) or, 2) a > 2 compartment “holding” aviary, used to house pairs immediately adjacent to other 'alalā (predicted to be more stressful for 'alalā due to the close proximity of others and the territorial nature of the species). Regardless of housing, we observed lower rates (per min) of positive welfare behaviors in incubating and parent-rearing than non-breeding individuals. However, when we examined the interaction of housing and temperament-like traits, the welfare outcomes were more nuanced. Birds in highly compatible pairs (regardless of enclosure) and, surprisingly, birds in more crowded aviaries (regardless of temperament) exhibited higher rates of positive welfare behaviors. Moreover, non-restful birds had higher mean positive welfare rates when housed in holding aviaries. Although not of primary interest in our study, we also found that average positive welfare behaviors increased over time (across repeated observations on each pair), which were largely associated with the presence or absence of rainfall. Following these results, we recommend future studies in which non-restful and highly compatible ‘alalā pairs are relocated to holding aviaries, as this may increase overall welfare of the breeding population. Additionally, where possible, we recommend future studies control for weather when conducting behavioral observations. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of accounting for differences in behavior among individuals when examining the impact of housing on animal welfare in conservation breeding facilities. • Hawaiian crows display temporal consistency in behaviors indicating temperament. • Housing and temperament interact to affect the rate of positive welfare behaviors. • Caretakers should consider the interactive effects of housing and temperament.

In the longstanding relationship that humans have shared with animals, differences have consistently existed in the way that humans perceive and interact with different species. It has been hypothesised that there is a link between our perception of animal intelligence and emotions and subsequent care in captivity. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate public perception of the cognitive and emotional capabilities of pets belonging to different animal classes and investigate if there is a link between public perception of an animal’s cognition and their perception of its ability to suffer and create a bond with its owners. The results revealed that the public perception of an animal’s cognitive abilities and emotional attachment to their owners followed the phylogenetic scale. Mammals received the highest scores compared to other animal classes and, generally, there was a significant difference between the scores assigned to all animal classes across all cognitive questions. Our findings also indicate that suffering is universally recognized across animal classes, though higher scores were assigned to Mammals and Birds than the other classes. Moreover, we found that when participants rated an animal's cognitive abilities highly, they also believed that animal had a greater capacity to both suffer and to form strong emotional attachments to their owner. The results of this study reveal that the general public do not consider different pet species to be cognitively or emotionally equivalent across classes, and that those species of animal judged to be more cognitively capable are considered more susceptible to suffering. As a result, pet animals which are more phylogenetically distinct from humans may have poorer welfare than those more closely related.

Inactive behaviour is essential to life. However, specific forms of inactivity may be indicative of compromised welfare in certain captive conditions. Inactive but awake behaviour (IBA - spontaneous, motionless awake behaviour without interacting with the surroundings) has been documented in some species and may be associated with poor welfare and negatively valenced affective states. In our previous work in laboratory mice, we have identified environmental risk factors (non-enriched housing) and curative factors (antidepressant drug Venlafaxine) for IBA and we hypothesise that greater levels of IBA may represent a depression-like state in this species. Here we aimed to identify which specific sub-characteristics of IBA would show construct validity as a depression-like state by exploring the posture (i.e. lying, curled lying or sitting), social contact position (i.e. in physical contact with a cage mate or not) and location of mice while performing the behaviour during two experiments (respectively investigating the aetiology and the curative factors of IBA). In both experiments we expected that more IBA would be displayed in standard (non-enriched) laboratory cages, compared with large highly-enriched cages and that a move from a highly-enriched to a non-enriched cage would increase IBA, while the opposite treatment would result in a decrease. In our second experiment (curative factors investigation), we predicted that less IBA would be displayed by mice that voluntarily ingested an antidepressant (Venlafaxine) versus a placebo. Because we could not control the number of instances of each IBA sub-characteristic we measured and we had no a priori predictions about which IBA sub-characteristics would match our general IBA treatment predictions, we compared the effect size and the direction of the effect between our treatment groups to explore which of the sub-characteristics matched our general IBA predictions. Overall, we found little variation in the location IBA was performed, with the majority being seen in the nest. Across treatment comparisons in both experiments, overall, the largest effect sizes were measured for IBA performed when in contact with the cage mate and performed when lying and both characteristics generally matched the direction of our treatment-related predictions. We suggest that future work should perform more detailed analyses of the specific characteristics of IBA by identifying behavioural sequences and the co-occurrence of the sub-characteristics to obtain a more complete picture of IBA as a depression-like indicator.