Feliway Comfort Zone Questions

Hi,

I have seen a lot of posts regarding Feliway Comfort Zone. I have a 4 1/2 year old male neutered indoor siamese, of the traditional variety. He is quite large for a siamese, 13 lbs. He can be high-strung, jumpy, and when faced with "fight or flight" he always chooses fight. When company is around, he has to be removed as he will pester and nip at the company. He can be aggressive (think Halloween cat, or, as one victim described it, a wild boar) towards non-resident family members, even if he is familiar with them. I wish he would just run and hide sometimes, like a normal cat!

So, I recently purchased the Comfort Zone plug-in (and boldy plugged it in yesterday morning), but have a couple of questions for those of you that use it.

1. Do you leave it plugged in all the time?

2. Sometimes I might want my cat to be confined to one room for a while, it is about 12x15, is it ok to do that with comfort zone plugged in? I don't want him to get od'ed on it!

3. If you have a cat like mine (I don't think he's one of kind, but ya never know) does this product work?

4. Will this help calm his nerves? Sometimes just the rustle of paper can make him spring about 3 ft. in the air, digging in fiercely with his back claws to get away (OUCH, I have the scars to prove it).

He really is a wonderful pet when it is just the three of us, but he is becoming a menace to part-time kids (who he used to be fine with) and other visitors.

Thank you, cat experts, for any insight you can give me!

I would venture to say that you might want to consider talking to a cat behaviorist about him. He has a lot of aggressive tendencies, and I have a few Siamese mixes, and there is nothing aggressive about any of them. Kahuna, the oldest of the litter is the most mellow and laid back of them all, noisy, yes aggressive no. It could be that this fellow is bored, and needs some interactive playtime with you every day, or a cat condo where he get off the floor and near a window to watch the world outside.

There are two books I would recommend you purchase by Pam Johnson Bennett. One is Twisted Whiskers, and the other is Psycho Kitty. Both books contain excellent guidelines about what to do with cats with so much aggression or who are bored and need energy outlets. Another thing you can try with him is take a large cardboard box- one big enough that he can run around in, and flip it upside down, cut a few holes in it on the sides (not at ground level) cut the flaps off and throw some ping pong balls inside and let him have his own ball bin.

About the feliway, as I have over a dozen cats, I have the comfort zone going all the time in my living room. I bought it because two of may cats- Ripster and Karma clash all the time. I don't know why they challenge each other, but they do. The others just watch amused. But since I have installed the Zone, the conflicts stopped. It took about a week for the two of them to stop spitting and growling (it never got beyond that stage thankfully) but after a week Peace reigns.


Good luck, and if you like, you can PM me and I can put you in touch with some really good cat behaviorists. It will cost you a little bit of money for their services, but it might be worth the phone call to help you out.


Good luck!

Thanks for your encouragement, Hissy, I ordered Psycho Kitty and Twisted Whiskers, and also Hiss and Tell, by the same author.

I just ordered Hiss and Tell the other day. It hasn't arrived yet. I think you will like the books, they are easy reads, and as they are case studies of problem cats, and how to solve the behavior, they are fascinating (to me anyway) and very enlightening.

Thanks again, and let me take this opportunity to say how much I appreciate this website. I found it about a month ago, after my cat went beserk (he hadn't done anything like that in almost a year, I thought we were through the woods but apparently he had other ideas) and was looking for some suggestions.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the information and the forums.

I bought Hiss and Tell just to see where my cat stands in relation to other cats

One other thought, my cat has only acted this way once in front of me, and he thought I was being threatened. I always hear these stories as a third party, so maybe he feels insecure without me around. That has added to my frustration, too. (not that I want to see it, I'd rather it not happen at all)

Thanks Dawn for the compliment-

Everyone here tries to do right for the benefit of cats and their owners.