Has anyone tried Feliway for stress relief?

[Thingymajigs]

My partner bought his cat when he moved in with us 4 months ago. I already have two cats here and over the course of the Summer they still haven't settled. It's his cat that constantly instigates the fights but we break it up before any harm is done. A trip to the vets today revealed that his cat has patchy hair loss due to stress and recommended Feliway. We have put in one downstairs but it can take weeks to work. Has anyone had any success with this?

Tried it - didn't make her any better, but then it turned out the cat wasn't stressed but actually ill, so it's not likely to have worked on that anyway, lol.

People who use the dog one seem to think it's good, but I don't know anyone else who's tried the cat one.

Thanks. I hope your cat is better now.
I'm pinning my hopes on Feliway because otherwise he'll have to be put on steroids or we'll have to give him up which just isn't an option; OH loves this cat as if it was his own child.

We have used it with FABCat but didn't notice any difference. TBH though she is old (18 in a couple of weeks) and has several illnesses.

Yeah, diffuser and spray and didn't notice any difference really, but one of ours was such a stressy terrified nutcase when we got her I'm not sure anything would have done much for her.

Cat nip was the only thing that helped - she'd go absolutely mental, lolling around, rolling over and purring, and then 10 minutes later be back hiding under something looking like you were about to beat her.

She's brilliant now, though, I hasten to add. She does the lolling and purring most of the time now - without the aid of drugs!

I've heard very good things about it from most people, but yes, you do need to give it time to work.

Feliway can really help with the stress, but there are probably some other things you can do to help as well. It's always best to take cat introductions slowly, so you could always try going back a step and starting afresh, if things are that bad between them.

Otherwise, check that each cat has easy access to the things it needs - enough food bowls, litter trays etc, and that they are located so that the cat can feel safe accessing them. You can even get down on your hands and knees and try to look at it from the cat's perspective - is this a place where another cat could jump on you, for example. Keep a close eye on them and see if one of them is bullying, because this can be quite subtle and hard to spot. Does the new cat have somewhere to call his own, where he can feel safe from the other cats?

You can also try transferring scent between them (rubbing a cloth on the cheeks of one cat and then rubbing it on the other cats) to try and make them smell similar. However at the moment it sounds like this won't go down well, in which case just put the scent near the other cat and reward it for being near it. There is a great leaflet by the ASPCA on how to introduce cats but I can't find it at the moment (the link seems to be down).

It's a big change for the new cat - new home, new cats, new people to adjust to - so time will also help.

Thanks for the advice. We have just added another litter tray to see if that helps and also took advice on food bowls. My partner has placed some extra dry food and water in two other rooms in addition to their main eating area which can get very crowded. My eldest cat is the alpha and everyone has to wait for her to eat first which causes issues because my partners cat doesn't seem to like his place in the pecking order.
I think if the alpha cat was the bully then all of this would be easier to understand but it is my partners cat that stalks the others on an almost constant basis. The alpha has took to sleeping on the wardrobe which he can't reach. A lot of it could be his age though, he's nearly 2 and my cats are 5 and 7. I will definitely keep an eye out for subtle bullying from mine too which might be going unnoticed.

I put zylkene in our cats food, he was OFF his face for the first day, relaxed to the point of "oh my god I've overdosed the cat".

It's a milk protein though and it gave him a runny tummy but he still seems more relaxed a couple of days after going cold turkey.