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How Can Feliway Help My Relationship With My Cat?
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to coffee talk. My name’s Dr. Erica Barron and this is Ellen Carozza our head LBT here at Nova Cat Clinic. And we’re in Arlington, Virginia. And we’re going to make this short today. But I talk a lot, so it might be long unfortunately because that’s how I go. But today we’re going to talk to you about our favorite products called Feliway. And there’s actually three versions of this. So we’re going to talk about what each one is and how we like to use it. So which do you think we should start with? The classic, since it’s classic? Why not? This is classic as the first one that actually came out. Yes. This is that when you work in a cat hospital the one you use. Right.
FELIWAY CLASSIC
Okay. Ellen, tell us, where does Feliway Classic come from on the cat’s body? Or where is it supposed to be, the pheromone? Actually, Feliway Classic is called the happy cat pheromone because it comes from the face and the ears or the head of the cat. So when the cat is actually marking territory, marking you, the furniture, walls, etc. those are safe spots. And those are their happy spots that they go ahead and deposit something of their pheromones, like their oils and everything, and they know exactly who’s been there by the mark of the oils. And they also know that’s a safe spot, they’ve been there, they feel secure. So that’s how Feliway Classic works. Yes. So what we like to do is we’ll spray this on towels, kind of air it out. The label says you’re supposed to spray it eight times before you use it. That’s a lot of sprays. As an asthmatic, if you sprayed this around me eight times I would have to go outside and use my inhaler. So they say to use it eight times but you also have to read the room and see what you can do and what your cat can do. And it does need to be reapplied every five hours. It does wear off. Yes, it does. And you’re supposed to let it sit depending on how you use it. Like if you stick it in a kennel or if you’re sticking it in a carrier. You’re supposed to stick it in there for a while first. This also comes as a defuser. So you can plug it in. It also comes as kind of like wet nap wipes. So you can wipe the inside of the carrier with it. I said the company needs to make a version of that like those little-scented trees you put in your car. So before you go to the vet’s office– Yeah, that would be good. –you’re hanging your little Feliway scented tree in your car– That’s a great idea. –wait a few hours. And then when you put the cat in the car everybody’s happy. Yes. And a lot of people like to spray this on towels at clinics and then put it over the carrier just to kind of give that cat an area to feel safe. And as Ellen said, it’s their– when they smell these it’s them smelling that everything’s okay. Right. Life is good. This is a safe spot. Yup. And the eight pumps are supposed to make sure that they’re overwhelmed by the scent of it. And that’s the only thing they can really focus on at that point in time. Believe me, you’ll focus on it if you spray that eight times and you stay [inaudible]. Yes. Yes. You will [inaudible]. So we tend to spray it on the towels, spray it in the kennels and everything in the morning before we have patients come in. So by the time they do come in it no longer smells like the alcohol carrier but it will actually help a lot of the patients remain a lot more calmer throughout the day. Okay. So that was number one. Number one.
FELIWAY MULTI-CAT
Now we’re going to do number two. This is Feliway multi-cats. With a rebate. With a rebate on it. Everybody loves the rebate. Good rebate. And we like to call this Feliway– oh, here’s the actual front without the rebate. So you can see the cats are friends. We like to call this friends. Yup. Feliway friend. So this comes from the mammary chain when the female of the queen has kittens. She emits this pheromone to kind of help them calm down so they don’t attack each other while they’re all trying to nurse because they do [laughter]. They do. And I usually think of this as sort of like, “We might not become friends, but I can deal with your existence.” It’s like the [inaudible]– It’s supposed to make them feel secure. How it works as far as the household dynamics go, if you’re using Feliway Multi, you need to be using Feliway Multi and Feliway Classic together to reap the full benefits of it. So you’re reducing the amount of stress and then you’re also making cats less likely to be [inter-cat?] aggressive. That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s supposed to create a more harmonious household. But yeah. That’s basically mom-in-a-box right there [laughter]. It’s mom-in-a-box. It works great with neo-nat and pediatric kittens. If you have kittens in your home, slap in a Feliway MultiCat in your house. You’ll have happier kittens. With the little tiny [inaudible] we have, the ones that you can’t seem to get happy, you put a little bit of that on a towel and you kind of have to shake the diffuser on it, a little bit goes a long way in a towel. You will have happier kittens. It’s amazing. You use it kind of off-label that way. I even said to the company when they were just here, “Why don’t you have this in a spray? This is amazing if you could use it for a spray because if that’s managing pheromones and you have kittens that don’t have a mom, they’re going to– “Where’s mom?” –feel super secure because of it. So that’s something to think about if you do work with pediatric kittens and [inaudible] kittens, is have one of these going in your house where the kittens are to make them feel more secure. The other thing to recommend is if you have a couple of cats that live in a house and they’re not thrilled, you put the MultiCat in the area where the cats kind of separate and then you put the Feliway Classic in where they’re together because the Feliway Classic is saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” And then the Feliway MultiCat is saying, “You’re loved. You’re loved. You’re loved.” Right. I have the Feliway Classic in my kitchen because all the cats go there to eat and then the living room is where the MultiCat is because that’s where the dynamics occur [laughter]. If we have an issue– Michelle and Benny do not get along a lot of times. If we have both of these going, we have no problems. And then I know the Feliway Classic– when I did this, this was the only one out– but if you know there’s going to be a new stress in the house, like if you’re having a baby, if someone’s moving, if someone’s coming to visit, something like that, just plug in a Feliway Classic if no one has asthma and then that is the one that you use to just tell the cats like, “It’s okay. These are all going okay. It’s okay.” I still got this today. That’s great. We’re so glad. Monica, I hope it helps your cats. So cats, Feliway Classic, and then Feliway MultiCat, and then the last one, which I’m very excited about, is quite new and it’s called Feliscratch. Why don’t you explain where this comes from? Feliscratch is actually the [intra-digit?] pheromones that a cat uses when they are going ahead and they’re marking their territory. You want to use this when they are not using the scratching post appropriately. What this does is an attractant that has them come to the scratching post. So it works three ways. It has a visual attractant because you’re going to create the vertical blue lines on your scratching post. They do disappear for a while, so don’t use this on your furniture. It’s meant for the scratching post. And the second– sorry to interrupt. The rep did recommend that when you put it on, make sure you put it over something you can clean. Yeah. Don’t stand over your couch and do this over the scratching post over the couch and then be angry that you have blue dye in the house. It does take a little time for it to absorb in, especially with some of these scratching posts and stuff are treated with anti-stain stuff. So it pools on it. So it works great on [inaudible]. It works great on cardboard. Just make sure you’re doing it in the vertical lines because cats like to mark vertically. It has catnip in it to attract them to the area, and then it alaso has those little [intra-digit?] pheromones for the cat to be like, “Hold up. I got to mark this.” “Yeah. This is mine, too.” And you’re supposed to use this in conjunction with Feliway Classic. If they are scratching furniture inappropriately, this goes on the furniture, this goes on the scratching post. This is, “You’re okay. Life’s good. You don’t need to scratch me.” “But this is great. T” “This is a fun place to scratch. Let’s do it together.” So they all work together to create a more happier household.
FELIWAY SCRATCH