Understanding Play in Cats: What It Tells Us About Emotional State and Welfare with Katarína Bučková

“Play is one of the most commonly observed yet frequently misunderstood behaviours in domestic cats. While many people associate play with fun and enjoyment, the relationship between play, emotional state, and welfare is often more complex. This webinar will provide an overview of play behaviour in cats, exploring its proposed functions, developmental significance, and links to predatory behaviour. We will discuss different forms of play, how play changes across the lifespan, and the factors that influence an individual cat’s motivation to play.
The webinar will also examine the role of play in assessing feline welfare and emotional states. Participants will learn how environmental conditions, social factors, health, and individual characteristics can affect play behaviour, and why both the presence and absence of play require careful interpretation when assessing welfare. We will explore common misconceptions about feline play, discuss practical approaches to supporting healthy play in cats living in a variety of environments, and provide a welfare-informed framework for interpreting play more thoughtfully in everyday and professional contexts”.

Your Presenters- Katarína Bučková

Katarína Bučková is an animal welfare researcher with a background in animal behaviour, affective science, and cognition. Her work focuses on understanding how animals experience their environment emotionally, and how behavioural indicators—such as play—can be interpreted in relation to welfare rather than training outcomes. She has worked primarily in academic research settings and is currently involved in research on shelter dog welfare, including the refinement of welfare assessment tools, evaluation of dog emotional states based on behaviour, and collaborative work on automated approaches to detecting affective states.

Although much of her empirical research has focused on farm animals, her work is grounded in comparative and cross-species perspectives, drawing on a broad scientific literature that includes companion animals. She is especially interested in translating behavioural science into welfare-relevant insights for applied contexts, while avoiding oversimplified or prescriptive interpretations. Through her work and outreach, she aims to support more nuanced, ethical, and evidence-based understanding of animal behaviour—particularly in cases where commonly used behavioural indicators may be misinterpreted or overgeneralised

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