Evaluation of the concepts on responsible pet ownership by the third age in non-governmental institutions in Araçatuba-SP

Abstract

Pets bring expressive benefits into the life of the elderly, so it becomes necessary to emphasize some of the concepts regarding responsible ownership consisting of a set of important attitudes that accounts for the well-being of all. In this context, non-governmental institutions represent an excellent mean of communication and information. Besides, the increase of the third aged people population indicates that a survey of parameters to this respect is necessary. Being thus, the objective of this work was to analyze the aged ones´ level of knowledge regarding their responsibility for their pet. A questionnaire was applied to 134 aged people, members of non-governmental organizations in the city of Araçatuba, SP, in order to find out how they took care of their pet animals. The pets aged from 2 to 336 months, being 43,3% mixed-breed animals. Out of that, 60,9% were male dogs and among cats, 65.2% were female cats. There was a 69.4% preference for dogs and a 17.9% preference for cats, only 10.5% of the elderly had preference for birds. From the descriptive statistics analysis it could be observed that 69.40% did not have any access to the street and that 50% did not have a veterinarian follow-up. Regarding vaccination it could be observed that 71.64% had received the rabies vaccine and 70.9% had received the combination vaccine. Also, 74.63% did not know the right moment to give medicines against animal worms. Another important fact was that 85.07% of the animals were not castrated and 84.91% were not under any preventive contraception method. In regard to food 50.75% of the animals were fed strictly with animal food, 12.69% with domestic food and 36.57% with both. Finally, 78.36% of the pets had never been ill. In this way, we can assure the importance of making responsible pet ownership measures well-known among third-aged people.

Keywords

• Idosos. Animais.