Cat-vigilance Observations

We have noticed that when some cats eat, they often interrupt their eating and move their head up and scan their surroundings.  We think this may be a vigilance behavior — if they were in the wild, they need to be vigilant of potential predators.  We would like to see if this is always the case in other cats.

You can help us evaluate this idea by video-recording the feeding behavior of your cat.  I have attached the instructions for video recording this behavior with your phone camera so you can see what it would involve.

Once we have these data, we will also ask if cats who were naturally infected with Toxoplasma gondii behave differently from uninfected cats.

If you can’t see the PDF file, you can download it using one of the links below:

Link: https://toxoproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Cat-Vigilance.pdf

Alternative link:
https://unomaha.box.com/v/vigilance-toxo