![]() How to help : In this case, the best thing you can do is provide your cat with an environment that has as few unexpected and sudden changes as possible, and do your best to ease her into new situations very slowly, says Gunn-Moore. If a kitten has a relatively uneventful upbringing, she is unfortunately more likely to grow into a stressed-out cat in adulthood. That’s the key window for introducing your kitten to everything she could possibly come across for the rest of her life, including pets and people of all shapes and sizes, lots of toys, and indoor and outdoor play areas. Here, a few surprising sources of cat stress and how to help your cat relax: A Boring KittenhoodĪ sometimes lesser-known cause of chronic cat stress is a lack of socialization in the first eight weeks of life, says Gunn-Moore. As such, minor changes to your environment that might not bug you could send your cat into a stress spiral. Collier, medical director of wellness medicine at Saint Francis Veterinary Center of South Jersey. “Cats are creatures of habit and do not like change,” says Dr. Over time, if left untreated, chronic stress could lead to health issues like urinary tract problems, weight loss, and infections ( 2 ). Any sudden shift in your cat’s environment-even a clean litter box that’s not placed to your cat’s liking- could cause cat stress and anxiety. However, it doesn’t just take a growling dog to scare your cat. Bruce Kornreich, Ph.D., director of the Cornell Feline Health Center. This is called the fight-or-flight response, explains Dr. ![]() When a cat is threatened by something unpleasant or potentially dangerous in her environment, this naturally triggers a flood of the stress hormone cortisol as part of her short-term stress response. Cats are highly reactive because they are simultaneously predators looking for prey and prey to other animals as well, says Danielle Gunn-Moore, Ph.D., chair of feline medicine at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. To understand why cats are so prone to stress, it’s important to remember how they evolved. Plus, learn how to deal with them to give you and your cat a better life. If you’re wondering what’s gotten under your cat’s skin, read on to learn some of the most unexpected cat stressors you might encounter. While some cat stressors make perfect sense (like dogs and fireworks, for example), others are easy to miss because they simply don’t seem like significant sources of stress to pet owners. Unfortunately, many signs of anxiety in cats (like increased aggression toward other pets or people, lack of appetite, urine-spraying outside of the litter box, and scratching up furniture) only make life harder for you and your pet ( 1 ). A stressed-out cat makes for a stressed-out owner, especially when you can’t figure out what exactly is causing your pet’s anxiety.
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