Calm Down! for cats
I’d like you to meet the oldest of my three cats, Blueboy.
Blueboy is an eight year old Persian cat that has been with my family since my grandmother picked him out as a birthday gift for herself in August of 2000. Between then and now Blueboy has gone through a lot. He traveled back and forth between my grandparents’ home and my mother’s home (a seventy mile/two hour trip) at least once a month. He co-existed with two dogs, then just a small dog, then a small dog and another cat, and then just the small dog again.
In the summer of 2004 my grandparents left Blueboy at my mom’s house permanently, as he was not liking the car trips every few weeks. He didn’t take to the separation very well, and reacted by urinating on my mother in her bed. It was then that he came to live with us.
Since then he has moved with us three times, and co-existed with five different cats, and a dog (the small dog mentioned above) on the three different occasions we fostered him. And then there have been the introduction of new humans to the household — our daughter, who was born in October of 2004, and then our son, who was born in July of 2006.
Through it all, he remained forever calm, mellow and friendly, with his typical I’m-better-than-you Persian cat attitude.
Until this past fall. I don’t know if it was the situation itself, or the straw that broke the camel’s back, but having my brothers live with us for seven weeks stressed Blueboy out, and pushed him beyond his endurance. Gone was the sweet kitty I knew. In its place was a sulking, skulking cat that hid under furniture, shied away from everyone, attacked the second youngest cat in our household (Kirin, with whom he had previously been on very good terms with), and worse still, began to use our bed, our daughter’s bed and my husband’s desk chair as his personal litter box.
This all started in mid-October, and went on through January. I had tried everything I could think of at that point — treats, extra love and affection when Blueboy would come around, separating him from the others, adding a second litter box to the household, etc. I even took him to the vet twice to ensure that there were no health problems causing the abrupt change in attitude and refusal to use his litter box on a consistent basis.
I was nearing the end of my rope, and honestly had been considering surrendering Blueboy to a rescue group or even the local humane league. I started looking into medications, and found several recommendations. A few days later, I was in PetSmart and happened upon Calm Down! for cats. The instructions were to mix one teaspoon in the cat’s drinking water twice per day. So I came home with that, new toys, additional treats, and another litter box. I cleaned our second bathroom, then made a bed out of soft towels and a pillow in the corner of it, behind the sparkly clean toilet. I set up a litter box, food and water dishes, put out a few toys, and then added a teaspoon of Calm Down! to the water. Finally I added Blueboy, after dragging him out from beneath our bed.
For the next two weeks, Blueboy remained in isolation in the bathroom. We kept the light on for him in the late afternoon and evening, and my daughter and I visited with him several times each day. Every night I would come in to give him canned food, give him fresh, Calm Down! treated water, and take care of his litter box.
After two weeks, we slowly introduced Blueboy back to the household, letting him out for increasing amounts of time, and after a week of good behavior, turned him loose.
Since then, Blueboy has been back to his old self. For us, Calm Down! was a godsend. It performed miracles in terms of ridding Blueboy of whatever stress, anxiety and upset that had been eating away at him and causing him to attack our other cat and urinate and defecate all over the house. Our proud, regal and happy cat is back with us, and Calm Down! is in our bathroom cabinet, ready if it ever needs to be used again.
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4 Comments
I think I will have to try this. My oldest cat has started to attack my youngest cat as well. It has been going on for a few months now. My youngest cat (tinka) hides all day under the couch. She only comes out when the older cat (sunny) is up stairs in bed for the night.
t
My cat Drizzit, a 10yr female snowshoe, doesn’t handle other animals or car rides. Several years ago we planned a vacation to my parents house – 300mi away. While planning for the 4yr yowl feast ride back, we happened on this product in PetCo. OMG – we dosed her about 30 min before the trip and she was relaxed for almost the whole trip back. The last 45min she started to “wake” up, but it helped so much. Once again we are planning our trip and I’m off to the store to buy a new bottle. For her health & for our sanity.
Hi! i bought calm down on petsmart web, i’m planning on movin with my two one year old cats, from caracas, venezuela to barcelona, spain, next august. Im just wandering how to use calm down, it says that can be given directly into their mouth, they like to drink water from the faucet and all kind of diferent places, so i dont think putting it in the waterwoul be effective.
I imagine that i have to prove it some time before the travel, but not sure when.
any help appreciated!
Vi
I will definitely have to remember this if my Fur Baby starts to act up!