catnip?

So we have had Karma for about 5 months now. She is 2 and I have read that cats start to like catnip around 6 months. We went and bought Cosmic Catnip at Petsart and have been offering it to her regularly for the last few days. When she first came home we got a scratching post infused with it, she sniffed it and then acted very scared. Now she won't go near the stuff. She acts lie it scares her. My husband has ground it into a fine powder to see if maybe it was the leafy aspect of it she did not like. That does not seem to matter. We know she had never had it befor now. Its like the "just say no to drugs" campain worked on her. Will she ever like it or not? Is it possable that she really is afraid of it? Does that happen?

Some cats simply lack the gene that allows a reaction to it.

She may not be a catnip responder. If not, try Honeysuckle. My cats are freaks and love both, but it's supposed to be one or the other. LOL Pat carried a great selection of Honeysuckle at Plain Brown Tabby: http://www.catniptoys.com/

The few times she did sniff it she got very high but skittish. We know it works on her she just scts scarred of it.

valanhb - should the Honeysuckle be dried or will fresh work? Flowers or leaves?

Why force it on her? She can get high in lots of other ways :-)!

When I first got my cat I spent hours making her a little felt mouse for christmas. I got a packet of catnip and read the back and it said use 1/4 of the packet for a cat toy so I thought what the hell, it's christmas and put the whole packet in. She didn't like it either, kept running away from it and acting like it scared her. Then we left her alone for a few hours while we went to my mothers for xmas dinner, got back and she had it in her mouth and was running around with it chucking it and then chasing it and rolling around on the floor with it. In the end we had to take it away from her for a bit because she started climbing the curtains (literally!) and trying to climb the christmas tree with it in her mouth! It's still her fave toy now but I've heard from other people that some cats just don't react to it at all.

What causes a cat to got nuts over catnip one time and totally ignore it another.

I bought one of those cardboard cat scratchers at Petsmart and it came with a little catnip pillow in celophane on the front. I put it on the floor when I got home, and heard all this commotion. Swanie was ripping the celophane apart to get to the catnip. He chewed that little pillow, rolled on it, rubbed it on his head, etc. Just generally had a blast.

So today I gave him the pillow that was attached to the other carton and he looked at it as if to say yeah, so? It's still laying on the floor right where I threw it. He's such a strange little dude

Mia has a little catnip mouse and dog she never really plays witht eh dog but every once in a while she goes nuts with that mouse. She throws it all over the places and chases it. But she like jingle balls better, I just can't stand the noise at 5 in the morning.

Some cats just don't like it. You have one of those. Clean up the spots where it is and give the rest to a friend's cat

Kitties will have one of two reactions to catnip. The first (and most common) is that they'll get excited, and be obsessed with whatever the catnip is on. The second (and not very common, and hardly ever thought of) is that they'll get scared, skittish, and jump at every sound.

It's kinda like a human's various reactions to drugs (and this is not from personal experience, mind you). Some people have a great high experience, and just have the time of their lives, while others turn paranoid and scared, and freak out in general. Same thing with catnip and cats, though, as I said, the fun experience is much more common among cats than the bad experience.

P.S. Sorry to compare catnip with drugs. I don't consider catnip any form of cat drug in any way, shape, or form. It's ONLY that it compared in this particular explanation.

does it matter? Will it affect how it works? I have only used it on their scratching posts and am not sure if they have any type of reaction from it?

I don't think fresh or dried matters.

Princess loves catnip, Puppy is completely indifferent, and Patches will hiss at it. Go figure. I'll have to try the honeysuckle though.