Thanks. I wasted a bunch of money on catnip when it turned out my cat was immune, which I didn’t even know was a thing.
After reading up on it, it seemed like there were gaps in the research literature—most of it was hopelessly old and inaccessible, there was no single estimate for how frequently cats respond to catnip and substitutes (so I could meta-analyze/multilevel-model this easily), and no data on the relationships of responses within a cat (so if your cat is immune to catnip, what do you optimally try next?) but this is easy to experiment with since cats are common (I’ve already gotten set up with several cat toys impregnated with catnip/valerian/honeysuckle so I can test each cat I run into with a battery of stimulants).
So after jailbreaking all the relevant literature, maybe run an online survey of catowners, then combine everything to get the population frequency of catnip response, and then begin experimenting with available cats to get an idea of whether responses are correlated and how frequently cats respond to each stimulant. Then catowners will know the risk of catnip immunity and each stimulant they should try next. See http://www.gwern.net/catnip
A minor contribution, perhaps, but there are a lot of catowners out there and it would be nice to bring some clarity to this area.
An anecdote that probably tells you nothing you don’t already know. My father has a chess set whose pieces are made of olive-wood and rosewood, and at least one cat my parents have owned has responded to the box (which I think is olive-wood, but I’m not certain) in the same sort of way as many cats respond to catnip. Googling suggests that other people have found that olive wood provokes a reaction from their cats. So you might consider adding olive wood to your battery of cat-tests.
It’s worth testing if I can get a decently odorous chunk of olive wood. Not sure where, though, as it seems like the sort of thing usually sold in a manufactured form and I’d rather not pay for expensive end-consumer cutting boards or chess sets. There’s also a lot of anecdotes that it works with plain old olives like, presumably, the ones you get in a can. Maybe that would work?
Maybe. I don’t have a cat myself (my wife is allergic) so I’ve no way of testing myself, and I have no more information than what I’ve already said. Sorry not to be more help.
EVOO should be a much better bet than olives in a can. Good EVOO smells different than “regular” olive oil, and olives in a can are basically dead and don’t smell of anything yummy.
There is also olio nuovo (or olio novello, depends on from which part of Italy) which is fresh unfiltered olive oil available only seasonally (around right now, for Italian olives) which is in entirely different class by taste and smell.
I thought of that, but if I was only going to get one thing, the google hits suggest that it would be much more reliable to go with olive wood, then olives themselves; most the of the hits concern constipation and things like that (only a few single out olive oil), which is inconsistent with what I would expect from a catnip substitute (firsthand, the effects of catnip, valerian, honeysuckle, and the silvervine I just got today, are all fairly noticeable) and suggests that whatever the active ingredient is (may not be the same as catnip, as some of the olive anecdotes claim catnip immunity in olive responders), it is lost or reduced in oil compared to the still relatively physically intact woods or olives.
That said, why not—if the EVOO does nothing, I can always eat it myself, and how expensive could it possibly be? Is there any specific brand or product you would recommend as particularly reliable?
I wonder if the olive wood reports are coming from the places (like Spain or Italy) where it’s easy to get fresh olive wood… In the States kitchen supply stores (including Bed Bath & Beyond) sell olive-wood spoons ($5 or so), bowls and such, but I don’t know how much processing (e.g. thermal) did that wood go through.
I buy olio nuovohere and can attest that it’s very different from the supermarket olive oil.
I wonder if the olive wood reports are coming from the places (like Spain or Italy) where it’s easy to get fresh olive wood...
The anecdotes don’t seem to specify that it must be fresh, no. Consider gjm’s anecdote right here: I doubt a chess board made of olive wood is all that fresh when it’s bought by the end-consumer, and if the freshness made a big difference and the chessboard was just months old, then the effect should’ve noticeably gone away. (That wood lasts a long time makes sense—the oils and other chemicals must be able to take a long time to leach out in at least some cases, because otherwise, there would be little point to things like cedar-lined closets.)
I buy olio nuovo here and can attest that it’s very different from the supermarket olive oil.
Mm. I was kind of hoping for an Amazon link, since I need to do an order on there soon anyway for Christmas gifts.
Just to avoid misunderstandings: what the cat freaked out over was actually the box that held the pieces. I do not know for certain that the box is actually made of olive wood. I do not know for certain whether it’s the wood of the box or the residual smell of one or other set of pieces.
I do agree, though, that it seems fairly clear that great freshness isn’t needed. The set wasn’t terribly new when the cat that freaked out over it joined the household.
Hatch.
Why the interest in catnip?
Thanks. I wasted a bunch of money on catnip when it turned out my cat was immune, which I didn’t even know was a thing.
After reading up on it, it seemed like there were gaps in the research literature—most of it was hopelessly old and inaccessible, there was no single estimate for how frequently cats respond to catnip and substitutes (so I could meta-analyze/multilevel-model this easily), and no data on the relationships of responses within a cat (so if your cat is immune to catnip, what do you optimally try next?) but this is easy to experiment with since cats are common (I’ve already gotten set up with several cat toys impregnated with catnip/valerian/honeysuckle so I can test each cat I run into with a battery of stimulants).
So after jailbreaking all the relevant literature, maybe run an online survey of catowners, then combine everything to get the population frequency of catnip response, and then begin experimenting with available cats to get an idea of whether responses are correlated and how frequently cats respond to each stimulant. Then catowners will know the risk of catnip immunity and each stimulant they should try next. See http://www.gwern.net/catnip
A minor contribution, perhaps, but there are a lot of catowners out there and it would be nice to bring some clarity to this area.
An anecdote that probably tells you nothing you don’t already know. My father has a chess set whose pieces are made of olive-wood and rosewood, and at least one cat my parents have owned has responded to the box (which I think is olive-wood, but I’m not certain) in the same sort of way as many cats respond to catnip. Googling suggests that other people have found that olive wood provokes a reaction from their cats. So you might consider adding olive wood to your battery of cat-tests.
It’s worth testing if I can get a decently odorous chunk of olive wood. Not sure where, though, as it seems like the sort of thing usually sold in a manufactured form and I’d rather not pay for expensive end-consumer cutting boards or chess sets. There’s also a lot of anecdotes that it works with plain old olives like, presumably, the ones you get in a can. Maybe that would work?
Maybe. I don’t have a cat myself (my wife is allergic) so I’ve no way of testing myself, and I have no more information than what I’ve already said. Sorry not to be more help.
EVOO should be a much better bet than olives in a can. Good EVOO smells different than “regular” olive oil, and olives in a can are basically dead and don’t smell of anything yummy.
There is also olio nuovo (or olio novello, depends on from which part of Italy) which is fresh unfiltered olive oil available only seasonally (around right now, for Italian olives) which is in entirely different class by taste and smell.
I thought of that, but if I was only going to get one thing, the google hits suggest that it would be much more reliable to go with olive wood, then olives themselves; most the of the hits concern constipation and things like that (only a few single out olive oil), which is inconsistent with what I would expect from a catnip substitute (firsthand, the effects of catnip, valerian, honeysuckle, and the silvervine I just got today, are all fairly noticeable) and suggests that whatever the active ingredient is (may not be the same as catnip, as some of the olive anecdotes claim catnip immunity in olive responders), it is lost or reduced in oil compared to the still relatively physically intact woods or olives.
That said, why not—if the EVOO does nothing, I can always eat it myself, and how expensive could it possibly be? Is there any specific brand or product you would recommend as particularly reliable?
I wonder if the olive wood reports are coming from the places (like Spain or Italy) where it’s easy to get fresh olive wood… In the States kitchen supply stores (including Bed Bath & Beyond) sell olive-wood spoons ($5 or so), bowls and such, but I don’t know how much processing (e.g. thermal) did that wood go through.
I buy olio nuovo here and can attest that it’s very different from the supermarket olive oil.
The anecdotes don’t seem to specify that it must be fresh, no. Consider gjm’s anecdote right here: I doubt a chess board made of olive wood is all that fresh when it’s bought by the end-consumer, and if the freshness made a big difference and the chessboard was just months old, then the effect should’ve noticeably gone away. (That wood lasts a long time makes sense—the oils and other chemicals must be able to take a long time to leach out in at least some cases, because otherwise, there would be little point to things like cedar-lined closets.)
Mm. I was kind of hoping for an Amazon link, since I need to do an order on there soon anyway for Christmas gifts.
That place (olio2go) has an Amazon storefront, I think they have some but not all of their olive oils there. You want the 2015 harvest, of course.
Well, I bought it and also some olive wood. Both cats ignored both of them. So far not so good.
I know some cat people—I’ll ask if they want to volunteer to transform their cats into guinea pigs...
Just to avoid misunderstandings: what the cat freaked out over was actually the box that held the pieces. I do not know for certain that the box is actually made of olive wood. I do not know for certain whether it’s the wood of the box or the residual smell of one or other set of pieces.
I do agree, though, that it seems fairly clear that great freshness isn’t needed. The set wasn’t terribly new when the cat that freaked out over it joined the household.
Is the box lacquered or varnished? It’s uncommon for items like this to be left unsealed.
It is, to the best of my recollection, neither lacquered nor varnished.
3. Here.
Huh. I never knew there were so many other plants that had similar effects on cats.
Anyway, best of luck getting Todd’s work… and getting cats high.
Thanks. Funny story—morphine addict with other issues for which the treatment was… morphine. Clever solution.