Would you buy this product? I am not pocking this product! “Pocking” means criticising products and people on PoC. There are many cat products on Amazon.
It is possible – if care and skepticism are exercised – to get some good insights into cat behavior, and more importantly human behavior in relation to cats, on the Amazon websites. The best one is the dot com site as it supplies the North American market and they have more products.
The Calming Collar is impregnated with a cat pheromone, which is meant to make the place feel more friendly to a cat.
I know cat collars are not popular (hated?) with regular PoCer’s. However, one imaginative and committed lady cut her calming collar up and distributed the pieces at strategic places around the home. Neat.
Her cat was pooping in the litter box but peeing outside it because he has IBS (inflammatory bowel syndrome) and he associated the litter box with pain. The cat’s caretaker did other things to make things better but the calming collar helped. It is a nice creative way of using the collar! It worked. She says the collars last a couple of months. So, someone could learn something about how to solve inappropriate urination by a cat with IBS on Amazon by reading the customer reviews. Not bad.
I realise that customer reviews
are not 100% reliable because they are planted by businesses sometimes to promote a product. Although, you can normally distinguish the genuine from the promo stuff.
Another lady says:
My cat has been acting out since our move in March. He was urinating everywhere and hissing at everyone but me. We took him to the vet and all the tests came back negative. He was put on prozac but could not handle it and was still hissing and growling. I tried this collar, I wasn’t hopeful, but then…It worked. I have my sweet kitty back. He has done a 180 and has stopped all of the bad behavior….
Genuine? I am not sure but one thing I don’t like is the fact she tried Prozac on her cat. The best way is patience and plenty of input from the caretaker.
I know the best way to resolve cat problems that are rooted in anxiety is for the caretaker to do more to keep her cat calm and contented. Basically, removing the cause of the anxiety is the true answer. A lot of these cases turn on forcing strange cats together in the home.
Many people look for easy solutions because they don’t understand how to fix “cat behavior problems” and don’t have the time. For practical and realistic reasons, sometimes, cat products such as the calming collar are justified, I believe. Personally I don’t use them but that does not mean they are unsuitable for every cat and every situation.
It is clear that this calming collar is neither a wonderful product nor a hopeless product. Some cats are calmed by it and some are not. Its effectiveness is unpredictable and depends on the cat. That would not surprise regular PoCers or people who understand cats. It is, however, an educational point. Cats are individuals. A lot of people are unaware of it.
The collar seems to be rather cheaply manufactured. There is a powder on it and it stinks of lavender. It appears not to be “breakaway” as described on the box. All that said, there are some success stories and the lady who cut it up and used the pieces had the best idea, I think.
You make a lot of good points Marc.
Many years ago when I brought a kitten home from the vets for my late mother after our dad died suddenly she tried to put a collar on her and she went quite mad. It was very traumatic for us all and we threw the collar away. Looking back maybe it was because she’d been abused before the person rescuing her brought her in as a stray saying she’d been used as a football, yet she was covered in sticky stuff like candy floss. She was very trusting and calm in every other way.
So who knows what the true story was?
I hate bells on collars too, how would the person putting one on their cat like to hear jangling with every move they made. It’s no excuse saying it’s a warning to birds, birds aren’t daft, they know when a cat is about, have you ever heard a blackbird’s warning shout “CAT CAT CAT”
Only the weakest birds get caught by cats. Rodents are much easier to catch and anyway what makes me mad about people grumbling if a cat does catch a bird, is that they think it’s fine for the cat to catch a mouse!