can catnip be used to teach cat to like toys?

[Hoboforeternity]

i bought 3 mouse shaped cat wand for Rivel and she's barely interested in it. she still prefer her old, mangled, feather one (in retrospect i should just buy other feather wands). can i teach her to like the new toys, chase it around with catnip? how do they work ?

i want her to be more active. if the catnip scent run out, will she be uninterested again? how much catnip should i use maximum? i heard they build tolerance over time.

 

[amethyst]

Cats seem to have preferences, some like feather toys, others like cloth, others balls, etc. As well as for wand toys some prefer heavier ground chase type while others prefer ones (like feathers) that you wave through the air. I have one cat that is obsessed with the Da Bird toy, he will play with other toys but I take that one out and his is full on into it. I like to rotate the wand type toys, fake fur cloth, fleece, wire with little cardboard things, etc, each one seems to be the favorite of different cats in the house. If you find one that your cat likes it's best to keep at least one of that type around as you try out new ones.

If you've never used catnip know that not all cats react to catnip and some that do actually don't like it, so that would play a factor in if it would help or not. If yours is one that likes catnip there are a couple things you can try, there is catnip in ground leaf form, in which case you will either have to put the toy in a bag with the catnip so it can "marinate" for at least a day, or cut the toy open and put a pinch of catnip inside then sew it back up. There are also catnip sprays you can get, it's just catnip oil in water that you spray a little (like one spray) on the toy, refresh as needed. If it's just the catnip that is getting her interested, then yes, if it doesn't have any scent left it wont be interesting anymore.

Cats can build a tolerance to catnip if exposed too often. If that happens you'll have to put catnip toys away for a bit, like a couple weeks to a month, so the cat can reset. It's best to rotate toys anyway to keep things interesting.

 

[Hoboforeternity]

If you've never used catnip know that not all cats react to catnip and some that do actually don't like it, so that would play a factor in if it would help or not. If yours is one that likes catnip there are a couple things you can try, there is catnip in ground leaf form, in which case you will either have to put the toy in a bag with the catnip so it can "marinate" for at least a day, or cut the toy open and put a pinch of catnip inside then sew it back up. There are also catnip sprays you can get, it's just catnip oil in water that you spray a little (like one spray) on the toy, refresh as needed. If it's just the catnip that is getting her interested, then yes, if it doesn't have any scent left it wont be interesting anymore.

thank you. buying stuff for cats is like playing russian roulette lol. i will try small bag of catnip first and try to 'marinate' one of the toy.

 

[amethyst]

thank you. buying stuff for cats is like playing russian roulette lol. i will try small bag of catnip first and try to 'marinate' one of the toy.

Yeah, at least that is one advantage of having multiple cats (I currently have 14 ) , even if some of them don't like a new toy at least one of them is bound to, lol.