Feliway® - A Calming Influence for your Cat
Feliway® is used as a treatment to help prevent your cat from engaging in marking behaviour. It also can be used to help calm your cat in stressful situations. It is clinically proven to end urine marking within 30 days with a 95% success rate and more and more vets in Britain and America are using it to help treat stress related disease in cats.
What Does Feliway® Do?
Cats are territorial animals that mark out their territory using a variety of visual and scent marks. Pheromones are natural substances, which play an important part in cat communication.
Cats rub their heads on objects from the corner of the mouth to the base of the ear depositing facial pheromones on the object surface. This marking provides a calming influence and feeling of security.
Where do Cats Mark?
Typically prominent landmarks are marked. In the home vertical surfaces such as walls, corners and furniture will be used. Marking occurs at about head height above the ground or floor where it can be easily registered by other cats.
Other forms of marking include urination and scratching. These less desirable forms of marking are triggered within the home by any changes that cause stress in your cat.
How Feliway® Works
Feliway® is a synthetic analogue of naturally occurring feline facial pheromones that make cats feel calm and secure within their environment. Feliway mimics these pheromones and, when sprayed or diffused within the environment, creates a comforting and reassuring feeling. This calms the cat, reducing the impulse to undertake urine or scratch marking.
How to use Feliway®
1. Urine marking
- Apply daily a single spray of Feliway onto the areas marked by the cat.
- Also spray prominent objects (such as doors, corners of rooms, furniture and indoor plants) daily.
- Some people feel that doing this twice a day is more effective.
- Continue applications for at least 30 days.
- Apply the spray with the bottle held vertically approximately10cms from the surface and about 20cms from the floor.
- Treatment of individual areas can be stopped once the cat is seen to be rubbing it with its head to mark it.
2. Modifications for urine marking
- Sexually excited cats - When a male cat is marking due to queen in heat, it is usually sufficient to apply Feliway only to the places being marked typically near doors or windows.
- Multiple cat households - Application of Feliway should be increased to two to three times a day on all marked sites. Prominent objects should be done daily or a Feliway electric diffuser can be used.
- Elderly cats - Use for elderly cats (10+ years) should be extended to at least 45 days and then every third or forth day for as long as necessary.
- Preventing Urine Marking - If your cat is prone to stress related bouts of urine marking then treat as above but treat just the prominent objects within the rooms of your home.
3. Scratch Marking
- Apply six sprays of the aerosol daily on each scratched surface for three to four weeks. At the same time provide a suitable alternative scratch post nearby.
- Prevent scratching by also treating any other possibly attractive surfaces.
4. Reducing Anxiety and Stress
- Spray the inside of the cat cage or carrier with Feliway several minutes before introducing the cat.
- For a car or other vehicle, spray three to four times the area where the cat travels before placing the cat there.
- Cattery boarding or veterinary hospitalisation, spray each corner of the accommodation before introducing the cat. Do this daily until the cat is observed to run its head over the sprayed areas.
- Changes in the home environment or stressful situations (fireworks) use the Feliway electric diffuser in the rooms likely to be occupied by the cat.
- Cats that are anxious about being handled can be calmed by the application of Felifriend to the hands prior to handling.
- Use of the diffuser where a cat has a history of feline lower urinary tract disease. Reduction and prevention of stress is believed to be important in minimising recurrence of the signs.
- In multi-cat homes in-fighting is commonplace and causes bullied cats a great deal of stress. The use of a Feliway diffuser is an excellent way of reducing or preventing fighting and hence reducing stress.
Achieving the best results with Feliway
- Consult your veterinary surgeon to ensure that your cat's problem is not due to clinical problem.
- Clean urine marked areas using only water and surgical spirit.
- Do not use disinfectants, bleach, biological detergents or deodorisers to clean affected areas, as they will interfere with the action of Feliway®.
- After cleaning allow areas to dry before applying Feliway®.
- Switch off electrical equipment and allow cooling down before applying Feliway® (it's flammable!).
- Allow bottle to room temperature and shake well before use.
- Do not spray when the cat is in the room. Wait 15 minutes before permitting entry as the initial smell of the alcohol in Feliway® may upset the cat.
- Do not punish your cat for urine marking or scratching, as this will only increase their level of anxiety.
Feliway® Products
Available in a number of formulations for details and how to order see:
- Feliway® Spray - for use in specific problem areas.
- Feliway® Diffuser - to allow large areas to be treated.
- Feliway® Transport - a conveniently size aerosol to use when taking cats to the vets, cattery or shows.
- Felifriend® - a subtly different form of Feliway® which increases cat's tolerance to handling.
All of these products can be ordered by contacting the practice via telephone. No prescritption is required however in many cases of stress of cystitis it is more appropriate to have a full health assessment with the vet before unsdertaking treatment. Click this link to find out the contact details of your nearest branch.
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Related Articles
- Stress in cats
- Urine Marking in Cats
- Scratching Marking in Cats
- Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD)
- Book Review: Why Does My Cat..? by Sarah Heath
