Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the situation for rehoming cats in Sweden. What reasons caused the need to rehome cats and also whether or not the advertisements contain adequate information to further contribute to the cats’ welfare with the new owner. The motivation behind this study was to get a better understanding to the challenges that the rehomed cats face. Advertisements were gathered from a Swedish online marketplace called Blocket.se every day during a 13-week period between February and April of 2023. Some advertisements were excluded from this study due to insufficient data. The result after the excluded advertisements, showed that 2363 cats needed rehoming according to the 1972 advertisements gathered from Blocket.se. The most common reasons behind rehoming cats were “allergies”, followed by “problems with other animals in the household” and the third reason was “private” which included changes in the life or family situation, etc. The three most uncommon reasons behind rehoming were “economy”,
“number of animals in the household” and the least common reason was “cat with behavior problems”. More than half of the advertisements contained requests, most of them were clear and demanding about the new owner or the new household, but only a few advertisements contained a
description of the cats' needs. The study showed that there were only minute differences between the number of males versus females which needed rehoming. The main part of the cats that need rehoming in this study were younger cats aged between seven months and two years old. The young age of the cats suggests that many people lack the necessary knowledge regarding cats' needs and their behavior but at the same time, one might not know about his or her allergies and therefore have to rehome the cat at an early stage. Hopefully this study will contribute to the awareness of the
amount of cats needing a new home and also encourage people that adoption is a very liable option.