Re: Cat likes catnip....

AMS — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:53:52 GMT

Feel free, I will help if I can.

Re: Cat likes catnip....

Katy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:58:59 GMT

Thanks for that pharmacological explanation! I am a Pharmacy Technician, so that is really interesting!

It's a bit of a complicated situation really, so I'm going to need all the help I can get.

I'll PM you if you are interested in helping me with it?

Re: Cat likes catnip....

Jill Macdonald — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:36:25 GMT

Excellent and informative answer AMS - and thanks for the info about catnip - had always wondered how it worked - my cat loves it! (or appears to anyway...)

Re: Cat likes catnip....

AMS — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:41:40 GMT

Catnip has hallucinogenic effects when cats take it into their accessory scent organ, the vomeronasal organ. Whether a cat responds to it or not depends on whether they have the receptor which is passed on as a dominant trait.

Feliway is a synthetic analogue of the feline F3 facial pheromone, thought to increase a cat's sense of wellbeing and security in its environment. Some (small and mostly run by the developers/company that sells the pheromone........) studies suggest that it has been useful in treating urine spraying (when not associated with sexual spraying or spraying when there is another cat within the same household that do not get on, that it can be used to decrease stress when applied to the cat's carrier and that it can increase appetite and demeanor when used in a vet hospital. Feliway has also anecdotally been used in other situations, with varying degrees of success depending on who you talk to and in some situations if used inappropriately and without concurrent behaviour therapy and environmental modification, can make the situation worse. Whether a cat will respond to feliway probably depends more on what the problem is, how severe it is, and other internal and external factors.

Zylkene is a milk derivative that is thought to form a molecule which fits into the GABA receptor in the brain in the same location as anxiolytic drugs such as diazepam and so is thought to decrease anxiety. Again some (again small and again funded by the company) studies have suggested it can work with in cats with 'behaviour problems related to anxiety'. Again there are lots of anecdotal reports of its use in various situations, again with varying outcome depending on who you talk to. Again, as its mechanism of action is based on a receptor in the brain, whether it works or not probably depends more on what the behaviour is, how severe it is, whether zylkene actually works etc.....

So..... just because your cat responds to catnip it does not mean it will respond to feliway or zylkene as the preposed mechanisms of action are all different.

What is the problem that you think you might need to use feliway or zylkene for?