Why does my cat not like catnip?!

[C1239]

Brought some spray on catnip to try and encourage my cat to play with his toys rather than furniture but he doesn’t seem fussed by it at all?!

I've had many cats over the years, and 2 of them didn't give catnip even a wee bit of a sniff. They simply didn't care. I have 5 cats now and all of them turn into zombie crackheads when I put some about.

Liking catnip is genetic so your cat doesn’t have the gene

Have you tried Valarian. My parents cat ignores cat nip, but goes mad for valarian.

My cat goes nuts with a slight sniff, then wees in the dogs beds.

We are currently growing some- I hope they have the gene- i like the thought of three zombie cat crack heads

Try a different catnip. One of my cats loves the spray, loves valerian teabags but is indifferent to dried catnip, the other loves the catnip plant and can't be bothered with anything else. Both of them enjoy a fresh silver vine stick for about an hour and then it may as well be any other twig from the garden.

Mine love the dried, are OK about the spray, and totally ignored the living plant. But yours may just not be that in to it - I know people who dislike alcohol, and even those who don't like chocolate!

We grow it, one loves it (we have to keep the plant out of reach) and the other is indifferent.

I grew some in the garden one year, it's actually quite pretty and has lovely flowers. My cat was totally disinterested in it and ignored it completely. The same could not be said of next-door's cat who used it as a cushion and squashed it flat.

About 20 years ago, I found this delicious herbal tea and drank it several times a day. One of my cats would go crazy around my cup, and then she would dig the tea bags out of the bin and rip them up all over the kitchen floor. I thought she had lost the plot until I looked at the ingredients. It had catnip in it.

Have you tried Yeoww Stinky fish? I’ve ordered some for Dn adoptee puss as a welcome present.

I spent more time researching that than looking for a housewarming gift for dn.

Molly's Mice are great as well as the Yeoww products (mine like the banana and the pollock from Yeoww).

Make sure he has a tall enough scratcher so he can stretch to full height. And maybe try a "kicker" toy? Mine don't use theirs, but SiL's cats kill theirs on a regular basis

Ernie goes mad for the good stuff, Yeoww and Mollies (I think that's the one, recommendation from here) but is indifferent to ahem cheaper ones

Just bought a Yeoww for Leo and he turned his nose up

The plant I have in the garden Ern ignored for years till recently

I found Dexter (Ern's sort of friend) rolling in it and high as a kite

My two ignore it!

Got mine a dried catnip toy once, he gave it a sniff and then pissed on it and walked off. Didn't try again!

Mine both love dried catnip, I saw a catnip plant in the garden centre last year and bought one for the first time. They both seemed quite keen so I re-potted into a bigger pot so it could grow a bit more, and kept it carefully hidden away in my closed greenhouse intending to pluck some leaves off every so often for my girls. One day I accidentally left it out, and I looked out of the kitchen window to see 5(!) cats, none of them mine, gathered around the plant rolling around in the garden in some sort of satanic ritual dance, poor plant had been totally decimated and the only evidence left behind was a couple of green stalks sticking out of the pot. Poor plant had met it's end far sooner than I anticipated and the whole street must have been wondering why their cats were high as kites that afternoon.