How Feliway is designed to work in calming cats

How Feliway is meant to work in calming cats
How Feliway is meant to work in calming cats

You can read lots about the benefits of a commercially available cat pheromone called Feliway®. It must be the most widely used commercially available product on the market to help calm cats in a multi-cat environment or perhaps in a home where there are one or two cats and one is “misbehaving”.

And it interests me how they are meant to work. I want to get to the bottom of how they work. What is the logic and reasoning behind the manufacture of these products?

It seems to me that there are two types of Feliway pheromone: the first is described as F3/Feliway and the second is an appeasing pheromone described as Feliway multi-cat or Feliway Felifriend.

F3/Feliway

The former is meant to reduce urine spraying and marking and it is meant to contain the pheromones that are produced in the cheek/sebaceous glands of a cat. The chemical components of this pheromone are: oleic acid, azelaic acid, pimelic acid, palmitic acid.

Feliway multi-cat

The latter pheromone is meant to mimic the queen’s mammary sulcus/skin sebaceous gland secretions during nursing. These pheromones are: oleic acid, palmitic acid, linoleic acid, myristic acid, lauric acid, and stearic acid. They are an appeasing pheromone between the queen and kittens and they are designed to reduce inter-cat aggression and multi-cat households and to improve cat interaction with co-resident dogs.

More: Does Feliway work? – more on this below on this page by the way. Please stay here!

Generic nature of manufactured pheromones

They must be reasonably effective or at least effective on some occasions but perhaps not others because the product is successful on the marketplace. But this product cannot be wholly successful i.e. 100% successful because these are generic pheromones produced in the laboratory. They are not a pheromone scent with a footprint from an individual and specific cat and there are other factors.

An individual cat living in a home will mark territory within their home range with a cheek pheromone in order to make the place more friendly. And that is the designed affect of the generic Feliway F3 pheromone in replicating the cat cheek/sebaceous gland pheromones. But because it’s generic is not going to be as effective for any individual cat but it is apparently a chemical smell which cats recognise as being friendly which helps to make the environment feel safe and secure. These generic pheromones cannot replicate the nuanced effects of a cat’s personal scent-marking but they do, apparently, to a certain extent, serve as a helpful tool to promote a sense of general safety and comfort in a multi-cat home.

Therefore, I conclude that even though they are generic pheromones there are elements within these chemical smells which trigger a calming effect on domestic cats in general. It’s a kind of common ground. And this will apply to both the pheromones described above.

The appeasing pheromone mentioned to reduce intercat aggression is clearly designed to calm cats and take away the need for aggression. It presumably removes some of the threat that they perceive in the environment from other cats and instinctively respond to with marking and aggression. The F3 Feliway pheromone reduces urine spraying/marking because this cat behaviour comes about because the cat needs to take control of their home range. If they feel they lack control because the home range is being invaded all the time they may spray to mark territory within the home. This F3 Feliway pheromone presumably helps to remove the threat that they sense from invading cats.

Efficacy rate

A well-known cat behaviourist,  Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado is unconvinced that Feliway works. This is what he says on his blog:

So, I have to admit, I don’t generally recommend Feliway to people whose cats are experiencing behavior problems…..Perhaps there are characteristics of some cats that make them more likely to respond to Feliway than others. Maybe some methods of application or use are more effective than others. But right now, it’s really hard to tell, and until we have better evidence, I’m not putting Feliway at the top of my behavior toolkit.

These products are not always successful. The success rate of Feliway can be somewhat challenging to quantify precisely because it’s effectiveness varies depending upon the specific situation and individual cats. However, one study found that Feliway reduced urine spraying in 90% of cats within the first four weeks of use and other studies have reported success rates ranging from 70%-80% in reducing stress-related behaviours and aggression among cats.

Surveys from pet owners who’ve used Feliway provide a broader picture and the overall satisfaction rate appears to be around 70% in cat owners who noticed some improvement in their cats’ behaviour after using Feliway. And in multi-cat homes about 60%-70% of owners have observed reduced tension and fewer conflicts after introducing this product. It is not a guaranteed solution and the effectiveness can depend on various factors including the severity of the existing behaviour and the number of cats in the home. It also depends upon whether the cat caregiver is doing other things to help prevent conflicts such as providing hiding places and high places to allow the more timid cats to feel more secure. But the efficacy rate is impressively high.

Sources: Study: Zhang L, Bian Z, Liu Q, Deng B. Dealing With Stress in Cats: What Is New About the Olfactory Strategy? Front Vet Sci. 2022 Jul 15;9:928943. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.928943. PMID: 35909687; PMCID: PMC9334771. AND: ChatGPT. AND me. 😉🤣

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