Talk:Cat pheromone

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 September 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bksy4312. Peer reviewers: SwallowInTheTrees, Teddyp1234.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:56, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments
You can also acheive a euphoric state, similar to that of LSD by sniffing cat pheromones.

Where did that came from? Any citations?

South Park, google cheesing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.101.60 (talk) 04:24, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

title not descriptive of content - product promotion?
This entry seems very oddly titled and balanced. The only pheromones discussed are hypothetical. It's really about cat attractants and (apparent) psychoactives, and seems to insert a promotion for a particular product early on and with undue prominence. A more general discussion of like products might be more appropriate: perhaps later and properly subordinated, after any scientifically known pheromones have been discussed. Michael (talk) 03:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I came here to find information about Feliway, as my vet just suggested it to help with my young cat's behavior issues. Not urine marking or scratching, he's much to eager to get outside and stay out for many hours in an area with coyotes. I was hoping for an article that discussed objectively the merits of the product (or lack of them) with a link to this article if I needed more information on the pheromones involved. (I'm no expert, but I have a fairly good layman's understanding of what they are.) Alas, the product itself isn't even mentioned any more. Shouldn't there at least be a mention of it as a commercial product that uses cat pheromones, along with a link to the companies website for more information? As long as the article limits itself to that, without any recommendations, I wouldn't think it would cross the line into product promotion, but I'm willing to let others with more experience with this kind of thing make the decision. JDZeff (talk) 01:56, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * mention or not, this whole article just can't go without the Feliway stuff. The F1, F5, FAP nomenclature comes from the Feliway people. The composition for these fractions can only be found in their patents. Whether they work at all is known from experiments that test products – and only Feliway makes these products.
 * At least it's all safe, boring-looking chemicals. The worst you can do is waste some money. Artoria2e5 🌉 06:17, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Confusion over cat pheromones and related products
A few thoughts about this article. Apologies in advance if I get things wrong with using this site as this is new to me. Firstly, there seems to be some confusion over the concept of cat pheromones and related products. - I wouold agree that the article does seem to perhaps give the products undue attention and they should perhaps only be mentioned at the end. it would perhaps be more useful to have a clearer description of pheromones / social odours in mammals. Early ideas of pheromones built upon early ethological ideas like the fixed action pattern (FAP/FMP), i.e that specific behaviours were hardwired into certain stimuli. We now realise that this concept is a simplification and even in insects pheromones work as part of a multisensory message (just seen the recent article in Animal behaviour by Bos et al, Vol 80: 839-844). So the chemcial secretions form part of the overall signal produced by a cat. To this effect it has been suggested there are a number of fractions (largely collections of fatty acids) in the facial secretions of cats that are common to cats on top of all the individual related chemical signals. It seems that these play a role in helping to orientate the cat chemically. Our brains (and those of cats) have a real challenge trying to work out what to focus on, as we have limited attentional resources and the use of chemical markers (what might be called safety signals) appear to help in this process. This is perhaps where the cheek secretions come in.

Another point in the article is the comemnt about the commercial products being based on valerian and while I know this chemical is listed in the original patent filed for one of the formulations, this was done to attract the cats to the fatty acid fixture. Since that time it has been realised that it is possible to use the product without the valerian with just as good effect. For example, velerian has never been in the diffuser and I beleive is no longer included in the spray form (certainly in the UK). It is perhasp the inclusion of this herbal (which is psychoactive) that has contributed to soem of the confusion concerning pheromone products with a number of companies now producing and claiming to have pheromone based products which are actually based on essential oils and not the fatty acid composition of the cheek glands. So i think some editing of this page would be useful if you agree. Daniel Profdsmills (talk) 08:01, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Daniel, good to have you on Wikipedia, the project would definitely benefit from your expertise! It important to keep in mind that Wikipedia uses highly collaborative editing, i.e. many people from vastly different backgrounds work on the same articles. We have very strict requirements on verifiability (please see Verifiability) and referencing (please see Identifying reliable sources and Identifying reliable sources (medicine)) - actually quite similar to those of scientific articles. Every exceptional or likely to be contested claim must be referenced to a reliable source, for scientific articles preferably review articles ("secondary sources") or otherwise to high quality publications. Therefore, before you edit the article, you should provide such references so that the other editors can check your contributions.
 * As for the Feliway claims, I have not seen any scientifically solid (i.e. adequately controlled and statistically sound) evidence for the fatty acid claims and the hypothesis itself does not make much sense to me as these compounds are ubiquitous and in no way cat-specific. We would also need a reference (e.g. on a web site) to the claim that Feliway no longer contains any "cat attractant" and it would be crucial to know if published studies used Feliway with or without a "cat attractant". Cacycle (talk) 07:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

More recent developments on the demonstrable efficacy of Feliway - not due to valerian
After our previous chat, we decided to look into the confusion over the efficacy of these products further. Partly as a result of this, we have produced the first ever meta-analysis of any treatment for behaviour problems in animals - focusing on urine marking. Given the widespread confusion and misinformation, I was keen for this to be published in an high quality open access forum and so it has appeared in PLoSONE see: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0018448. valerian content only relates to the spray - it has never been in the diffuser, and you can identify from the graphs which use the diffuser. I really hope this will convince those with open minds that this product is more than a placebo. I know some people have found it hard to understand how chemicals which are so common biologically speaking can be used in such a way, but I think that is why it has to be picked up via the vomeronasal organ. It is about the ratio and needs the cat to focus on these semiochemicals using this organ. the trick which the manufaturer's seem to have come up with is to present it at such a high concentration in the aerial environment, that there is sufficient natural diffusion in the VNO for it to have its effect without an auxillary sign (such as a visual mark) to actively engage the VNO. I agree there is a lot of confusion over the use of the term pheromone, but please can we look beyond that and focus on the science relating to action rather than semantics. I also know that we still have a lot to understand about chemical communication in the cat, but it doesn't help to deny the progress we are making, as this limts the insights we make as a result. I'd appreciate it if the entry could be updated accordingly, or if you would allow me to do this without changing it back. If you want to discuss further I'd be happy to do so thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.195.9.31 (talk) 13:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC) — I really question your knowledge of the subject, given a valerian extract is present within both the spray and diffuser. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.54.70.156 (talk) 15:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't have access to the package, there isn't an article on Wikipedia about the product (though there could be, or should be) so all I have is the company advertisement, which says the active ingredient is the F3 synthetic analogue, mimicking the facial pheromones of house cats. I think that to be clear, it needs to be verifiable easily. Such as a Wikipedia page. Honestly, I'm not an expert, so I only have what others say to go off. Therefore if two editors state conflicting and mutually exclusive proposals, it is hard to work out who is mistaken. Is it just that valerian is an ingredient, but not an active ingredient?

Signed - Gumball Tristopher Watterson, formally known as Zach Watterson. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.184.195.195 (talk) 04:32, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Translate into easily understood English?
I found the section under "Cat urine odorants" to be very confusing. I think it needs to be translated from veterinary textbook language into plain English that most people can understand. Risssa (talk) 21:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Expanding This Article
Hi, I will be expanding this article as a part of my animal behaviour course. I plan to add more information about what a cat pheromone is, how it is used to communicate (scent marking and bunting), what specific pheromones there are and their behavioural function, and a small portion on pheromone therapy to manage behavioural problems. Here is a current list of the sources I plan to use:

Dantas, L. M., Delgado, M. M., Johnson, I., & Buffington, C. T. (2016). Food puzzles for cats: Feeding for physical and emotional wellbeing. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 18(9), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098612X16643753

Mermet, N., Coureaud, G., McGrane, S., Schaal, B. (2007). Odour-guided social behaviour in newborn and young cats: an analytical survey. Chemoecology, 17(4), 187–199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00049-007-0384-x

Pageat, P., & Gaultier, E. (2003). Current research in canine and feline pheromones. The Veterinary Clinics of North America. Small Animal Practice, 33(2), 187–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0195-5616(02)00128-6

Vitale K. R. (2018). Tools for Managing Feline Problem Behaviors: Pheromone therapy. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, 20(11), 1024–1032. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098612X18806759

Weiss, E., Mohan-Gibbons, H., & Zawistowski, S. (2015). Animal behavior for shelter veterinarians and staff (1st ed.). Wiley.

Wyatt, T. D. (2010). Pheromones and signature mixtures: defining species-wide signals and variable cues for identity in both invertebrates and vertebrates. Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 196(10), 685–700. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-010-0564-y

Vitale Shreve, K. R., & Udell, M.A.R. (2017). Stress, security, and scent: the influence of chemical signals on the social lives of domestic cats and implications for applied settings. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 187, 69–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2016.11.011

Bksy4312 (talk) 22:39, 10 October 2021 (UTC)