What is cat stress?
Simply put, stress response refers to the abnormal physiological or psychological response of cats to external stimuli.
It is also a type of cat stress response, which has been confirmed to be the most common cat behavior problem and an important reason for cats to suffer from a variety of diseases.
According to animal behaviorist Patricia B. McConnell, Ph.D., stress can shock the immune system and induce a variety of diseases.
What causes stress?
New cat arrives/moves.
The unfamiliar environment can make cats extremely fearful and uneasy, and it is also the main reason for stress.
Visit the veterinarian at the pet hospital, or go to the pet store for grooming.
Cats can be frightened by going out in a car, or being in unknown surroundings with strangers.
House renovations or other loud noises.
Cats hate loud noises, which are scary to them.
Family changes.
Include increases and decreases for pets or humans. The owner’s emotions can also affect cats, and cats are often anxious when family members are stressed.
Resource contention.
This occurs most often in multi-cat house
holds, when cats feel they must compete for food, water, clean litter boxes and owners.
Performance of stress response
Stress response is generally classified as acute and chronic:
1. Acute stress response
Acute stress may be triggered by unexpected events or threats, and it is easier to identify.
2. Chronic stress (long-term stress)
chronic Stress is relatively difficult to identify because it accumulates for a long time and requires the owner to observe patiently.
Stop eating, licking, urinating and defecating, or overeating (depending on personality type)
Inactive or “pretending” to fall asleep
Hiding
Defensive aggressive behavior toward people/cats
High vigilance, or severe startle response
Excessive licking, pica
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Excessive skin and hair scratching
How to relieve stress?
A. Identifying the source of cat stress
If you don’t know what’s causing your cat’s stress, it’s hard to relieve your cat anxiety and stress.
If stress is triggered by a specific event, the easiest way is to eliminate or minimize the impact of that event.
B. A relaxing living environment for cats
Just like us When you are stressed, you need to be quiet. Cats also need a quiet environment.
Turn down the volume on the TV to make sure all sounds in the home are kept to a minimum (especially the yelling or screaming of young children). Give your cat a good rest and relax as comfortably as possible.
Create a small, secluded space for your cat at home. It can hide at any time when it is afraid.
In addition, it is important to provide cats with suitable scratching boards. Scratching is a great way for cats to reduce stress.
Make sure cats have separate food bowls, water bowls and litter boxes, cats usually don’t like sharing litter boxes.
If the cat behaves inappropriately due to stress, please do not yell or hit it, this will only increase its stress level.
C. Play with a toy to distract the cat
Leave some time alone with your cat. Sitting quietly with the cat can be reassuring, and gentle petting from beginning to end can also relax the cat.
Prompting and rewarding your cat at the right time can also help your cat relieve stress.
Encourage cats to play with various toys, and play with cats every few days with cat sticks and the like. This kind of exercise is a good stress reliever for cats.
D. Use cat pheromones to soothe cats
You can use cat pheromones (cat pheromones) ) to reduce cat anxiety and stress.
The commonly used cat soothing products on the market are cat facial pheromone.
It is an analogue of a kind of natural pheromone secreted by the cat itself, which releases the cat’s relaxation pheromone. signal, it provides a reassuring feeling to cats in their surroundings.
These “happy messages” can help cats feel safe.
It has a very calming effect on cats, the most common signs of stress in cats are excessive scratching, peeing outside the litter box, hiding and fighting.
E. Go to the vet to check the cat’s health
Make sure the cat is vaccinated and dewormed on time . At the same time, you need to be alert to the cat for potential physical discomfort.
Example: Pain or other diseases that debilitate the cat’s body and mind. A physical examination should be done as soon as possible, so that the veterinarian can assess whether there is an underlying disease causing the cat’s anxiety.
