Hittin’ The Nip Raise a Paw

Hittin’ The Nip
Raise a Paw

Snuggles serenely lies on a paper towel, staring into infinity, oblivious to all that surrounds him until The Dude cautiously slinks into his field of vision. Snugs slowly and deliberately turns his head, a formidable glare affixed to his piceous visage, and Dude freezes in his tracks. The tension is palpable. The standoff continues for what surely seems like hours to the two black felines, and then… BAP! Dude gets bopped on the nose and beats a hasty retreat. Snugs re-adjusts to ensure maximum possible coverage of the paper towel, then returns to his zen-like state. The battle for the nip has subsided… for now.

But why?

As I sit there watching my stoned cats interact with each other, it dawns on me that I have absolutely no idea why they like catnip. Furthermore, I have no idea why the now-departed cats I’ve shared my living space with didn’t like catnip. Human drugs need to be taken into the body in some way — drunk, eaten, smoked, sniffed, injected — to do its stuff. Catnip, however, seems to require no such consumption; a cat’s proximity is sufficient to trigger a strong and often entertaining reaction. I resolve to find the answers.

At first, the most authoritative answer I can find is “I dunno, they smell it and start acting happy,” but that doesn’t satisfy me. I dig deeper, and soon the answer begins to come into focus:

Catnip is related to mint and, like other mints, contains highly aromatic oils. When the right cat smells one of these oils, called nepetalactone, it acts as an artificial pheromone and triggers a sexual response similar to female cats in heat. Your cat isn’t high, your cat is horny!

But that reaction isn’t ubiquitous. Sexually immature kittens don’t react to catnip, and sometimes elderly felines don’t either. Two thirds of adult cats have the gene that causes this reaction to nepetalactone; the rest miss out on all the fun. And it doesn’t work on people either. It can be a mild sedative if tea is made from it, and some folks claim it will cure everything from headaches to gas, but rubbing catnip on your pants isn’t going to help you on your next date.

Regular mint smells similar enough to hold a cat’s interest, but doesn’t seem to cause the euphoric reaction of catnip. Also, olives can spark a similar response (Weird! I’ll have to try that.)

Catnip is harmless to cats and not addictive. Big cats like it too, as shown in this YouTube video. It’s OK for cats to eat it, but they don’t get any effect from the catnip by doing so. Typical reactions include head-shaking, mewing, purring, sniffing, sneezing, licking the nip, chewing the nip, eating the nip, rubbing and rolling around in the nip. My cats do all of that. But there’s only so much a cat can have before the effects end. When that happens, it takes an hour or two away from the catnip before they can return and get happy again. Nepeta Curviflora

There are many ways you can give catnip to your cats. You can grow it fresh and give it to them, buy dehydrated flakes or pellets, buy toys with catnip inside them, buy a spray with catnip oils in it, or even buy catnip scented bubbles for your cats to play with (very fun for everyone). Just keep in mind that there are various species of catnip and potency can be lost during the drying process if not done properly, so different brands will vary in strength.

One source suggests once a week is a good interval for letting your feline companions have some nip – which brings up a complaint I have about cat toys. When you walk into a store, it seems every cat toy has catnip in it. Why? That seems excessive to me. I mean, I like whiskey and drink it often, but I don’t put it on my cornflakes in the morning! There’s a time and a place for such things, and I like to exercise the same restraint with my fuzzy friends. I like to keep my cats’ catnip stashed away where they can’t smell it or get to it. That way it’s a treat for them when I bring it out.

I usually set a paper towel or paper plate on the floor and place a generous pinch of dehydrated nip in the middle. Whichever cat finds it first sniffs it, rolls in it, chows down on it, then mellows out and ultimately lies on the leftovers which are mostly seeds and bits of stem (stoners feel free to place your jokes in the comments section). It seems they lay on the rest to keep the other cat from it, so I often try to pick the one cat up to give the other a chance. But that doesn’t always work, and sometimes a standoff ensues…