Friday follies: The truth about catnip addiction

Middle cat lying with his tail in an amaryllis and the rest of him surrounded by early spring catnip. This article says inhaled catnip oil stimulates the olfactory bulb (not a surprise), which signals the amygdala and the hypothalamus in such a way that the response out of them is sexual. Middle cat is thus sitting in a bed of artificial cat pheromone that substitutes for his missing testicles. He is not so much getting high as getting off.

It also says 70 to 80% of cats react to catnip, but they don't start reacting to it until around 6 months, which we have noticed with little cat. We were afraid for a while we had a kitty who wouldn't benefit from our vast catnip patches.