DEFRA's 2024 Regulations (Part 7)

Part 7 - DEFRA's Regulations

7.0 Monitoring behaviour and training

All these incompetent bureaucrats were doing was justifying their existence by filling in blank pages to impress their boss, but too lazy to actually do any work, they just copied and pasted from other documents - “training” is not a word associated with cats … and then they included 7.4 to remove the idea of training - so, what was wrong with correcting the title to “7.0 Monitoring behaviour” and not including the regulations found in 7.4?

Environmental enrichment:

7.1 Active and effective environmental enrichment must be provided to the animals in inside and outside environments. The business must have a documented programme that shows how they provide an enriching environment to the cats.

Every bureaucrats job was created to ensure smooth running, but the only job DEFRA's bureacrats do is waste time and other people’s money - businesses do not have the luxury of wasting money, being inefficient or documenting pointless or useless shit.
Enrichment requires time that we don't have due to the excessive bureacracy and most enrichment is outlawed by regulation 7.2.
If enrichment means access to outside runs, not all catteries have outside runs and every cattery is dependent on the design accepted by the planners, and need only apply to new builds.

Access:

All cats must have access to:

• appropriate toys
• scratching posts
• hiding places

We wish that any DEFRA official had access to reality.

Scratching posts are not required by all cats, outside cats, short stay cats or cats with clipped claws and can be provided by owners at no cost to the business.
Scratching posts are expensive, difficult to dispose of, difficult to disinfect and what the f is an inappropriate toy? A hand grenade perhaps?
The only hiding places in a rectangular room will be the sleeping area and every carrier they arrive in is stored in the room with the door ajar in case of an emergency evacuation!
Then they bring the same thing up again in Section 3.1 of Part B – Specific conditions: providing boarding in catteries for cats (schedule 4, part 1 of the regulations) to provide suitable examples of hiding places all of which can be provided by the owners and none of which are the responsibility of the cattery.

Exercise:

7.2 For species whose welfare depends partly on exercise, opportunities to exercise which benefit the animals’ physical and mental health must be provided, unless advice from a vet suggests otherwise.

Cats must not be taken from their individual units except in an emergency or for veterinary treatment. Communal exercise areas are not acceptable.

The physical and mental welfare of all cats depends on exercise, but the morons at DEFRA limited the majority of all exercise to their pen - throwing a ball of silver paper into their rooms or whacking them with a feather on a stick because there’s no room for them to chase it.

Behaviour:

7.3 The animals’ behaviour and any changes of behaviour must be monitored. Advice must be sought, as appropriate and without delay, from a vet or, in the case of fish, any person competent to give such advice if adverse or abnormal behaviour is detected. The behaviour of each cat must be monitored each day. Changes in behaviour must be recorded and acted upon if there are signs of:

• suffering
• stress
• fear
• aggression
• anxiety

Staff must get advice from a vet, who may refer the cat to a suitably qualified animal behaviourist.

A qualified animal behaviourist? They must grow on trees and are called out to catteries almost as much as vets make house calls.
Stress, fear, aggression are all present in half the cats who arrive here and if we didn’t monitor the behaviour of every cat we couldn’t interact with any of them and we’d end up with more scars than skin. And if you knew anything about cats at all, then you’d know that anxiety and suffering are anthropomorphising and are instinctually hidden and non-communicable.

Immaturity:

7.5 All immature animals must be given suitable and adequate opportunities to: (a) learn how to interact with people, their own species and other animals where such interaction benefits their welfare (b) become habituated to noises, objects and activities in their environment

It’s not a regulation, it’s not an advisory, it’s not practical. It’s just more irresponsible shit written to fill up white space to impress the boss.

This discussion of DEFRA's regulation fiasco is covered in ten short articles:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10