Anxiety is common in cats, manifesting as hiding, inappropriate elimination, aggression, and self-grooming disorders that indicate significant psychological suffering requiring compassionate behavioral and medical management.
Feline anxiety causes genuine psychological suffering that owners may misinterpret as behavioral problems. A cat hiding constantly, eliminating outside the litter box, or overgrooming to alopecia is not being spiteful or difficult — it is experiencing chronic fear or anxiety that drives these behaviors. The welfare impact includes both the direct psychological distress of the anxiety state and secondary harms including skin damage from overgrooming and social conflict in multi-cat households. Many anxious cats are relinquished to shelters when their stress-driven behaviors become unmanageable, often because behavioral and medical intervention was not sought. Effective treatment exists — combining environmental modification to reduce stressors, behavioral counterconditioning, and pharmacological anxiolysis when needed — and provides meaningful welfare improvement for affected cats.