The Top 6 CBD Oils For Cats (2022 Roundup)

What Are the Benefits of CBD Oil For Cats?

CBD works the same way on cats as it does in humans — which means it offers all the same benefits:

• Alleviates anxiety in high-stress cats
• Promotes relaxation and sleep during long car rides or trips in a kennel
• Helps to ease joint, hip, and back pain
• May be used for specific medical conditions (along with guidance from a veterinarian)
• May improve appetite in cats avoiding their food (full-spectrum CBD oils only)
• Promotes general health and wellbeing
• Alleviates nausea and vomiting

How to Use CBD With Cats Safely

Getting started with using CBD oil for your cat is relatively simple. CBD oil is non-toxic for cats, and has a very high level of safety.

With that said, it’s not completely free from side effects. Like any health supplement, your cat may react negatively to CBD oil or other ingredients in the formula.

In order to minimize the potential for unwanted side effects in your cat, it’s important you follow a conservative dosage regimen the first few times you use it.

Once you get to know how your cat responds to CBD oil, dosing becomes much easier.

Here’s how to figure out the right dose to give your cat, how to give it to them, and signs to look for that suggest if it’s working or not.

How Much CBD Oil Should I Give My Cat?

Cat’s really don’t require much CBD. They have small bodies to begin with, and tend to be more sensitive to endocannabinoids than dogs or humans.

It’s important to start with a very small dose when first using CBD oil with your cat to see how they respond.

Start with 1 mg doses and work your way up in small increments until one of two things happens:

1. Symptoms start to resolve — this means you’ve found the optimal dose for your cat.
2. Your cat experiences side-effects — this means you’ve gone over the optimal dose. Reduce the amount of CBD to the last dose that didn’t produce side effects, this is the optimal dose for your cat.

While every cat is different, there are some general dosage recommendations to give you an idea of how much CBD oil to use with your cat. We’ve outlined these doses in the table below based on weight.

How to Give Cats CBD Oil (Without Getting Clawed)

Once you’ve got your CBD oil ready, and your cats giving you a skeptical look across the room, it’s time to administer the first dose.

There’s really only one way to give cats CBD oil — drop it into their food when they’re not looking.

Unlike using CBD oil for dogs, you can’t just squirt a few drops into their mouth — unless you want to lose a finger, that is. You have to sneak it int to their food so they can take the dose on their own terms.

It helps if you get a CBD oil that comes pre-flavored with something like fish, chicken, or beef. Bacon works too but we’ve had a much higher success rate for this flavor with dogs.

I recommend starting with a 300 mg bottle of CBD oil or less for your cat.

The dose of a 300 mg CBD oil is low enough to use safely for cats but strong enough that you only need a few drops for the oil to take effect. This greatly improves the likelihood that your cat will accept the CBD oil instead of clawing your skin off trying to avoid it.

CBD oils are usually a better value when you get bottles with more CBD — so you’ll also be saving some money in the long run by choosing a 300 mg bottle instead of the smaller 150 or 100 mg options.

How to Tell If CBD Oil is Working For Your Cat

How can I tell if CBD is working for my cat?

Your cat can’t tell you if they’re feeling any better after ingesting CBD oils, so you’ll need to go off observation.

It helps to keep some notes about your cats’ behavior so you can track any progress. There’s a reason you’re looking to give your cat CBD oil — so start there.

• Is your cat showing signs of joint or back pain? (s/s: low mobility, limping, unwillingness to jump or go upstairs)
• Is your cat anxious? (s/s: excessive grooming, aggression, trembling, lethargy)
• Does your cat have an inflammatory disease? (as diagnosed by a veterinarian)

Take notes about anything your cat is doing that seems out of the norm.

Over time, as you give your cat CBD oil, you may notice some of their symptoms start to go away. You can look back on your notes to help find some of the more subtle changes in your animal.

If you’re not seeing any improvement, you may want to opt for a CBD oil more specifically formulated for the condition you’re aiming to treat. For example, you can find CBD pet oils for arthritis, epilepsy, cancer, anxiety, and much more. Most of these oils are marketed for dogs, but they work just as well for cats. These products may offer better support because they contain other ingredients that help support the effects of CBD for a specific condition.

How Long Does CBD Oil Take to Work For Cats?

The amount of time it takes for CBD to start producing results depends on several factors — the age of your cat, the reason for using CBD in the first place, the severity of symptoms, and the dose of CBD you’re using.

In general, CBD oil will begin taking effect immediately. If your cat is experiencing symptoms like pain or anxiety, you should notice results right away. However, it can take some time to find the right dose, so be patient and follow the advice above to find the optimal dose for your cat.

Some symptoms will take longer to go away even when you do find the right dose.

For example, inflammatory disorders, chronic joint disease, or digestive dysfunction will usually take a week or more before you should expect any improvement.

The rule of thumb is this — if it took a while for symptoms to appear, it will take a while for them to leave. if symptoms appeared suddenly, they tend to go away suddenly as well.

The bottom line: be patient when using CBD oils with cats. You may notice improvement immediately, but it could also take up to a week (or longer).

Potential Side Effects of CBD Oil in Cats

• Indigestion
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Nausea/Vomiting (rare)
• Dry mouth
• Diarrhea
• Poor appetite
• Skin rash (rare)

→ Learn more about the potential side effects of CBD.

How Does CBD Oil Work For Cats?

The active ingredients in CBD oil (CBD, CBC, CBG, CBN, and other cannabinoids) act on a specialized series of receptors collectively referred to as the endocannabinoid system (ECS).

Nearly all animals on Earth have an endocannabinoid system — including humans, cats, dogs, horses, reptiles, and birds. Even sea urchins and nematodes have an endocannabinoid system.

This primitive system was thought to have evolved millions of years ago in the hydra genus — which is thought to be when the first neurological system evolved several million years ago.

The ECS is tasked with moderating homeostasis — which is a fancy word for balance.

In cats, the ECS is involved with regulating many important functions, including:

• The sleep/wake cycle
• The fight or flight stress response
• Pain transmission and inhibition
• Hormone production
• Inflammation
• Immune function (mast cells, dendritic cells, T-cells, B-cells)
• Skin regeneration
• Neurological health

CBD Works by Interacting With the ECS in Cats

When a cat ingests CBD, it travels through the digestive tract and into the bloodstream. From here it’s transported all around the body.

Once inside the cells, CBD works by preventing other endocannabinoids from breaking down — such as anandamide and 2-AG — which are the two cannabinoids naturally produced by a cat’s cells.

By preventing these compounds from breaking down, they can exert their effects for longer periods of time. This helps boost the cat’s ability to maintain a balance of all its core systems.

It’s this improvement in homeostatic balance that gives CBD such a diverse set of effects.

CBD Reduces Pain By Interacting With the Vanilloid Pain Receptors

While the primary benefit is to bolster the ECS in cats, it also interacts with other areas of the body.

For example, CBD is able to activate the vanilloid pain receptors located in the brain and spinal cord. These receptors play a major role in the transmission of pain signals. By activating these receptors it’s able to dim the signal of pain heading towards the cat’s brain — effectively lowering the amount of pain the car perceives.

Comparison: Best CBD Oil For Cats

Number	Product	Total CBD	Potency	Cost per mg CBD	Link
1	Pet Hemp Company CBD Oil for Dogs & Cats	150 – 3000 mg	5 – 100 mg/mL	$0.05 – $0.20	Get a Deal
2	Royal CBD Full-spectrum Pet Oil	125 – 500 mg	4 – 17 mg/mL	$0.18 – $0.40	Get a Deal
3	CBDistillery CBD Pet Tinctures	150 – 600 mg	5 – 20 mg/mL	$0.07 – $0.20	Get a Deal
4	Hemp Bombs Pet CBD Oil	125 – 1000 mg	4 – 33 mg/mL	$0.10 – $0.24	Get a Deal
5	Veritas Farms Pet Tincture Infused With Full Spectrum Hemp Oil	200 mg	6.7 mg/mL	$0.15	Get a Deal

Final Thoughts: What’re the Best CBD Oils to Use For Cats?

CBD oil is an excellent health supplement for cats. The most common reason people reach for a bottle of oil to help their feline friends is to help with anxiety.

Cats are anxious animals to begin with, so it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge. Signs your cat may be feeling anxious include excessive licking, lethargy, trembling, excessive meowing, avoiding food, not using their litter box, or constant attempts to escape.

CBD oil is also useful for helping with digestive problems or managing chronic pain as your cat gets older.

Cats require much smaller doses of CBD oil than humans or dogs. For this reason, I recommend you get a CBD oil that contains no more than 300 mg of CBD per ounce (30 mL). The most common potency for cats is 300, but you can also find 200 mg and 150 mg oils that will work just fine as well.

The best CBD oils for cats are usually made by pet-specific brands like The Pet Hemp Company or Honest Paws.

However, there are also plenty of other brands making top-notch CBD oils for cats — including Royal CBD, CBDistillery, and Hemp Bombs — just to name a few.