The Feline Formula for Better Compliance
Addressing cats’ unique sensory and behavioral needs can help veterinary teams overcome barriers to monthly flea and tick protection.
Anyone who’s worked with cats knows medication compliance can be a major barrier to care.
“With cats, it’s all about choice and control,” said Dr. Casey Locklear, DVM, director of medical strategy, Parasitology, US Pet Health, Elanco. “They need and thrive on having their own autonomy, and that shapes how they respond to care of any kind.”
This is especially true when it comes to oral medications. Cats rely heavily on their sense of smell to determine what’s desirable to eat, which is a big part of why aroma matters so much in feline medication.
There are several hurdles to better medication compliance. The first is getting cats into the clinic, which can be a big topic to tackle. “For those cats coming into the clinic, cat owners are looking for easy solutions,” said Dr. Locklear. “They want to do what is best for their cat’s health.”
However, the most memorable thing for a pet owner is how they perceive their cat’s stress, including the experience of giving them their monthly parasite protection. “In my experience, success is driven by proactively putting cat parents’ minds at ease,” Dr. Locklear said.
This can be as simple as confidently telling cat owners at every wellness appointment there is a tasty, simple solution specifically formulated for cat’s preferences, laying the groundwork that parasite coverage doesn’t have to be stressful or intimidating.
When medication is delayed
At the individual level, cats are natural hunters and curious by nature, so they’re at risk from a range of parasites including fleas and ticks. Left unaddressed, that risk shows up as flea allergy dermatitis, secondary skin infections from scratching and grooming, and disease risks, including bartonellosis, Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and cytauxzoonosis (bobcat fever), the most serious tick-borne disease in cats.
There’s a human health angle to consider here too, said Dr. Locklear. Cats can pass zoonotic diseases to the people around them, most commonly bartonellosis, or cat scratch fever, which fleas play a direct role in spreading — keeping fleas under control can help protect cats and reduces risk to people.
“From an individual patient level, data shows cats are roughly twice as likely as dogs to be found with fleas, and flea allergy dermatitis in cats has risen far faster than in dogs over the past decade,” she said.
Cat considerations for preventives
The biggest mindset shift in thinking about preventives from a feline-perspective is around the “indoor-only” label, Dr. Locklear said.
“How often have you seen a cat labeled indoor only, yet it certainly has signs of a flea infestation?” she said. “Owners often assume indoor means zero risk, but fleas and ticks are stealthy, and they find ways to be inadvertently carried into our homes.”
For example, unattached, crawling ticks can be carried into the home by people or other pets. Indoor cats need flea and tick control just like outdoor cats do. Dr. Locklear recommends year-round coverage regardless of a cat’s indoor or outdoor status.
Another key consideration from dogs is product formulation. Allogrooming, the unique mutual grooming behavior in multi-cat households, can make administering topical medications especially tricky, as it’s important to keep cats from grooming topicals not only off themselves, but off one another. “It’s also critical to note that products developed for dogs aren’t necessarily safe or appropriate for cats,” Dr. Locklear said. “That’s part of why Credelio CAT was developed as the first and only oral flea and tick product made specifically for cats.”
While palatability is important, cats actually have 70% fewer taste buds than dogs and rely heavily on their olfactory sense when determining what’s desirable to eat, according to industry research. “That’s why Credelio CAT’s development highly emphasized product smell and flavor, heavily considered cats’ unique eating behaviors and physiology, and tested multiple flavor and smell attributes before landing on a vanilla-and-yeast combination,” Dr. Locklear said.
In a U.S. field study, 99.5% of cat owners successfully administered Credelio CAT across 648 doses in a diverse range of cats, with nearly half of tablets accepted voluntarily and most of the rest accepted when simply placed in the cat’s mouth.
Dosing frequency and packaging matter too, and preferences will vary among individual pet owners. “However, smell is often the limiting factor here,” she said. “If a cat doesn’t accept the smell, taste never even comes into play.”
Uninterrupted protection
Ideal compliance is year-round, uninterrupted monthly protection that owners follow through on. To that end, the industry is making real progress, Dr. Locklear said.
“A cat-specific oral option has shown that when smell and ease of administration are addressed directly, acceptance rates can approach near-universal success in real-world field studies,” she said. Owner demand backs this up, too. Nearly three out of every four cat owners say they’d like to try new and improved methods of flea and tick control for their cats.
“The remaining gap isn’t really about the medication anymore,” she said. “It’s about building the habit and communication loop between clinic and owner that keeps that first month of success going every month after.
Cats that live exclusively indoors can still be exposed to fleas and ticks. Fleas can enter the home on people or other pets, while unattached ticks can hitchhike indoors. That’s why year-round parasite prevention is important for cats regardless of their lifestyle. Veterinary teams can help dispel the “indoor means zero risk” misconception and reinforce the importance of consistent, uninterrupted flea and tick protection.
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