Intro and advice please

[Leighspetcare]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and am hoping for some advice. I have three cats - Arnie a big ginger softy, Sparkle his feisty tortie sister and Dora, out little black and white cat with a huge attitude.

I need some help with Dora, she was a rescue kitten who we got at 6 months, she was born to her mum in a foster home so did not have a stressful beginning to her life until she got something wrong with her back leg and had to spend quite a few weeks in a cage but even so she was just a normal happy kitten. She is now 5.

Dora I think suffers with stress. She over grooms - licking the area in between her back legs bald though not to the point of soreness. She's also scared of things like the tv being loud - especially things like football (I can't blame her there!) but anything with crowd noise. At night she sleeps by my bed and will growl at the other two if they try to come in - but is fine with them any other time. She did once have bladder crystals / cystitis which i believe can be stress related. However, Dora is what I would call the boss! She's the first one rushing out the cat flap to have a go at the numerous cat visitors we get in her garden and is just generally very 'up front'.

I was thinking of trying calmex for cats and wondered if anyone has used this and what your experience was.

Sorry for the long post. Thank you, Leigh & Dora x

[Crewella]

Hello and welcome. Dora does sound like the boss! I've never tried Calmex, but I have tried Feliway with nervous cats and that has helped with several.

[lilynmitz]

She does sound a very stressy cat, and to be honest ideally the best way to deal with it is to try to address the things that upset her, and keep her, and her environment, calm and constant as much as you can. Try to look at the world from her perspective and see what the triggers are.

But that can be difficult to achieve, particularly when so many things set her off! Try Calmex and/or Feliway, Xylkene is a similar product to Calmex. But making her feel safe and secure is a better and cheaper way to deal with it.