What affects us affects cats
Professor Benjamin Hart from the University of California’s School of Veterinary Medicine claims that mice produce lactones which act like catnip on domestic cats and, in doing so, it acts as a defence against being killed by said cats! Catnip contains a molecule called nepetalactone. You can see the connection in terms of chemistry. …
I had no idea but that well-known domestic cat ‘psychedelic drug’ called catnip is also an insect and mosquito repellent. It’s a double purpose product. Although I’m not sure you should use it on yourself unless you want your cat climbing all over you behaving in a silly way. THERE ARE MORE ARTICLES ON …
There is a proposition online in the news media that the similar chemicals in catnip and silver vine, nepetalactol and nepetalactone respectively, can help protect a cat from mosquitoes and perhaps other parasites, as well as giving them a high. Do cats deliberately seek this protection from mosquitoes? The idea comes from a research …
Yes, catnip is okay for kittens but Dr Desmond Morris writes in his book Cat World that, “Young kittens do not show the response. For the first two months of life all kittens avoid catnip, and the positive response does not appear until they are three months old”. Has your kitten responded contrary to …
Do cats like the smell of mint is the question and the answer appears to be yes but there is quite a lot of confusion surrounding a discussion about cats and mint. I was drawn into the subject because Japan’s leading cat doctor, Dr Yuki Hattori, writes that “many cats like the minty smell …
It is universally known that catnip induces playful actions such as rolling on their backs and rubbing. Catnip affects both domestic and wild cats such as lions, tigers and ocelots. Approximately 2/3rds of cats are affected. The effective substances ‘agents’ that cause this behaviour are nepetalactones. These are ‘volatile metabolites’. It is believed that …
It makes you look carefully; a stange combination of a hairless cat and a tongue covered in catnip. In my experience domestic cats don’t really eat catnip when it is loose as we see in the photo. They lick it up and spit it out. This behavior is part of a package of odd …
Bleach or sodium hypochlorite is also good for killing feline viruses! Some cats like the smell of bleach even though generally cats dislike the smell of cleaning chemicals. Some cats get high on the smell of bleach as if it is catnip. There appears to be no chemical link between the chemical in catnip …
