Anxious cats. They are hard to deal with for numerous reasons, but using CBD oil for cats with anxiety can be a great way to help return your cat to a healthy stress level.
Using CBD oil for cats with anxiety is a relatively new development, but a crucial one. Cats can suffer extreme anxiety for numerous reasons, and if CBD can really help ease their anxiety, we can get rid of lots of ugly side effects that go with it.
Does CBD Really Help Cats With Anxiety?
Before answering if and how CBD can help cats with anxiety, it’s important to discuss what CBD actually is. As a compound found in a cannabis plant, there’s a lot of known benefits without the “high” that THC related compounds can produce.
Imagine getting your cat high trying to calm them down. That could end pretty poorly, which is what makes CBD great for calming your cat down.
So, the way that CBD helps cats with anxiety is that CBD regulates various physiological processes like your cat's mood, appetite, their pain levels and immune functions through their Endocannabinoid System (ECS). Without getting into the details, CBD helps increase concentration of these compounds.
When it comes to anxiety, CBD is known to help enhance serotonin production, which helps greatly with mood regulation in cats. It also can promote something called neurogenesis, which reduces anxiety and can improve their overall brain function.
So the short answer is, yes CBD can help aid cats with anxiety.
What's A Good CBD Dosage For Cats With Anxiety?
When it comes to providing CBD dosage for your cats, calculation is key. It’s important to note that your cats can’t overdose from CBD, so don’t become too afraid of this.
The best thing you can do with dosing is to be consistent. It’s going to be very hard to understand if your dosing is correct, but consistency is key for cats because they are creatures of habit. As a general rule, a cat shouldn’t really be ingesting more than 10mg of CBD at one time.
Using that high of a dosage should also be reserved for cats in serious pain. So you can use a dosage chart such as the one below, but we would recommend only using the low to medium dose, as anxiety really shouldn’t call for a “high dose” of CBD to be treated.
| Weight | Low Dose | Medium Dose | High Dose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 10 lbs | 1mg | 3mg | 5mg |
| 10 - 20 lbs | 2mg | 4mg | 6mg |
| 20 - 30 lbs | 3mg | 5mg | 7mg |
We would recommend sticking to a medium dosage once a day or a small dosage twice a day. It sort of depends on when your cat is most anxious.
For us, we like to give Pima a low dosage twice a day; once with his breakfast and once before dinner. Since our cats are pretty active after they eat, the breakfast dose helps ease him for the chaos. And the bedtime dose helps him sleep.
For your cats, it might be better to give them a stronger dosage in the morning if that’s their most anxiety inducing time period.
How To Administer CBD Oil For Cats With Anxiety
Administering CBD for cats can be tricky, especially if your cat suffers from anxiety. It’s common for them to shy away from unnecessary contact, and that instinct is amplified when you’re trying to make them eat something. Important to note is that anxiety can quickly turn to aggression if you are too assertive with your cat, so tread carefully.
Nevertheless, administering CBD is relatively easy if done at the right time. If your cat has a good temperament you can give them CBD oil by placing the dropper in their mouth.
For us, this would never work. We need to provide the oil on top of their wet food at mealtime.
If you plan to give the CBD to your cat in the middle of the day, we recommend going with CBD treats, as cats are more likely to eat them whenever you give it to them. You can also mix the CBD treats into their dry food.
We use the CBD treats for Pima in the morning with his dry food and the CBD oil with his wet food at night. This helps balance out what he gets, and it plays well with his diet which is a wet/dry food mix to help with, well, everything.
Best CBD For Cats With Anxiety
The best CBD for cats with anxiety is anything that’s natural, lab-tested, and agrees with your cat. Since they are suffering from anxiety, forcing them to take medicine isn’t going to help the situation. As long as they are comfortable with it, there’s lots of options available, but we have found oil and treats to work best.