Catnip Addiction: Is it Dangerous to My Kitty?

[sas3]

Maybe you could get on that show Intervention and get all his cat friends and family to confront him about his addiction.

I use to have a cat that would meow and meow until I gave him a can of tuna.
I used this compulsion to teach him to say “MAMA” instead of Meow.
He made a great conversation piece after that.
People would be just amazed, they would ask “Did that cat just say “mama”

LOL

 

[Loren Booda]

My kitty has a catnip addiction. I'm totally serious...she'll meow and meow until I give her a pinch of it, which I do because...well I just want her to shut up. Her will is stronger than mine and she can meow for hours!

Sounds the same as what my Kitty does on her diet. What a great marketing ploy it would be to spike brand name cat food with catnip!

 

[rewebster]

Sounds the same as what my Kitty does on her diet. What a great marketing ploy it would be to spike brand name cat food with catnip!

they may do that already---hiding the word catnip under the heading of 'and other spices'

 

[Galteeth]

I noticed they put taurine in some brands of catfood. But I can relate to the OP's problem. It's easy to say just ignore the cat, but man, they do not give up! If you're sleeping they climb on your face, and if you lock them out of the room, they'll scratch and meow for hours.

 

[rewebster]

if I had a kitty, and if it liked catnip, I'd give the kitty catnip all the time--


rawhides are the permanent choice of the dog here ---she usually has two in various states of gnawing

 

[GeorginaS]

I noticed they put taurine in some brands of catfood.

They put taurine in all brands of cat food. It's required by law. While taurine is currently a fad thing for humans and added to energy drinks such as Red Bull, it's a whole different thing for cats. It gets leached out of pet foods during production and must be added back in. (I know we don't like to cite Wiki here, but it's the quickest, most straight forward source.)

Taurine is an essential dietary requirement for feline health, since cats cannot synthesize the compound. The absence of taurine causes a cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and (eventually) irreversible blindness — a condition known as central retinal degeneration (CRD),[55][56] as well as hair loss and tooth decay. It was discovered in 1987 that taurine deficiency can also cause feline dilated cardiomyopathy.[57] Unlike CRD, the condition is reversible with supplementation. Taurine is now a requirement of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and any dry or wet food product labeled approved by the AAFCO should have a minimum of 0.1% taurine in dry food and 0.2% in wet food.[58]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine"

 

[Galteeth]

They put taurine in all brands of cat food. It's required by law. While taurine is currently a fad thing for humans and added to energy drinks such as Red Bull, it's a whole different thing for cats. It gets leached out of pet foods during production and must be added back in. (I know we don't like to cite Wiki here, but it's the quickest, most straight forward source.)

Taurine is an essential dietary requirement for feline health, since cats cannot synthesize the compound. The absence of taurine causes a cat's retina to slowly degenerate, causing eye problems and (eventually) irreversible blindness — a condition known as central retinal degeneration (CRD),[55][56] as well as hair loss and tooth decay. It was discovered in 1987 that taurine deficiency can also cause feline dilated cardiomyopathy.[57] Unlike CRD, the condition is reversible with supplementation. Taurine is now a requirement of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and any dry or wet food product labeled approved by the AAFCO should have a minimum of 0.1% taurine in dry food and 0.2% in wet food.[58]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine"

Huh. And here I thought they were "redbulling" fancy feast. funny

 

[DaveC426913]

They put taurine in all brands of cat food. It's required by law. While taurine is currently a fad thing for humans and added to energy drinks such as Red Bull, it's a whole different thing for cats. It gets leached out of pet foods during production and must be added back in.

Where did cats get taurine from before the days of mass-produced cat food?


Oh, I see. From meat. With their modern sedantary lifestyles, cats get much less meat than they used to.

 

[GeorginaS]

Where did cats get taurine from before the days of mass-produced cat food?


Oh, I see. From meat. With their modern sedantary lifestyles, cats get much less meat than they used to.

Yes, from meat. And it's tricky, because not all meats are created equally, so even raw food diets have to monitored for sufficient taurine.

We know that taurine is supplied almost exclusively by meat and seafood. Vegetables contain little to no measurable taurine as a group. Taurine is broken down by heat, thus, cooking meat will destroy over half to maybe 2/3 of the taurine that was available raw. It is difficult to calculate the amount of taurine actually supplied by a particular diet given the variables- baking vs boiling meat results in losing different amounts of taurine, meat from the chicken leg has much more taurine than that from the breast, and the list of variables goes on and on.

http://www.vetlord.org/taurine-is-essential-for-cats/"