Cat stress or what causes cats to be unhappy

What causes cat stress?

Cats feel a lot better when they feel in control of their envionment.Anything that interrupts their feelin of control can make cats unhappy. Over time this can raise your cat stress level and lead to anxiety.

To feel in control, cats will carefully mark their home with "happy messages" (or pheromones). This happens each time a cat rubs its face againt furniture or nuzzles against your legs.

Common causes to cat stress:

Things that may disturb your cat

Many things can disturb your cat’s need of stability, and lead to cat stress.

For instance, every time you move furniture, bring in new furniture, do a major housecleaning, renovate your house, do some DYI work at home… This can remove the “happy messages” left by your cat, and then they don’t feel at home anymore.

When this happens your cats become disorientated, and show signs like hiding, scratching or peeing: in your cat’s language, it’s a sign of cat stress.

Other things that may affect your cat happiness are access to food, heat, water, litter, attention and competition in the household with other cats, as well as visitors to the household.

If you feel that your cat is unhappy or suffer from cat stress, FELIWAY can help.

Note most calming aids do not address the underlying issue whereas FELIWAY CLASSIC provides calming support by sending “happy messages’” to your cat in its environment.

If you have several cats and they do not get along, this is also a major source of cat stress. FELIWAY FRIENDS, by sending the same “harmony messages” produced by the mother cat when nursing her kittens, can help alleviate tension and conflicts between them.