My cats LOVE their catnip too. They don’t seem care whether it’s living or dried. One of my cats actually starts acting like he’s drunk if he has too much catnip. He gets a little “tipsy” and just keeps purring. At least he’s a “happy drunk”, or maybe I should say catnipaholic…LOL

What I found with my pets is that my dog, who sadly passed away a few years ago, would eat grass to seemingly make himself sick. I never really noticed if he had a preference for which grass he chose for the job.

But I noticed my cat eats grass without seemingly vomiting. He may be doing it privately as we all know cats can be tetchy about personal functions. I’ve also noticed he generally eats the juicer looking grass. He also eats the catnip I give him!

So I’m not sure if this means he is just eating it because he likes it, or if he is just using it to help himself vomit but doing so privately, but it’s fascinating behaviour none the less.

I found some interesting related articles

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10339384

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence#Self_medication

http://www.biodynamic-research.net/ras/animals/a-health/

http://www.alternativevet.org/zoopharmacognosy.htm

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your experiences with Jasmine and J.D. It’s interesting that they prefer Timothy grass over other varieties. I wonder why that would be. Perhaps it has something to do with the taste of the grass or perhaps there’s something about the physical makeup of the grass itself that makes it more fit to achieve their purpose, whatever that purpose might be.

It’s such a common thing, chewing on and eating grass. You’d think we would know more about why it happens and what purpose it serves, if any. But, basically, all we really have are theories right now. It’s entirely possible that there is more than one reason dogs (and cats) eat grass and the reason may vary from one situation to another.

You may also be correct about the amount eaten affecting whether vomiting occurs after ingestion or not. There’s just so much we don’t know, even about something as common-place as this.

Do/did our dogs eat grass because they wanted to throw up/felt sick? Sometimes they’d eat grass when we would suspect they’d feel sick. But not always.

Further, our dogs seem to be particular about the grass they’d eat. Their top preference is Timothy grass. If given a choice from a broad number of grasses, that’s what they’d eat. It seems that when the Timothy grass is available, they’ll eat it simply because the opportunity is there, whether they might feel sick or not.

When Jasmine did feel sick, she’d want to eat grass and would be more specific as to which kind. Interestingly, rather than making he sicker this would seem to make her feel better WITHOUT throwing up.

It also seems to me that, Jasmine in particular, doesn’t actually eat the grass, just nibbles on it to extract the juice.

J.D. is not a good indicator of anything, because he’ll eat anything he can get into his mouth in such an amount he can physically manage.

Given my own observations, I’d think that there could be two distinct reasons

1) the mechanical advantage in order to induce vomiting when they are not feeling well

2) the actual supplemental reason, where they are getting something that they feel is beneficial

I think animals do have good instincts to know what is good for them and know how to find it. I feel that eating grass is part of that, similarly like eating other dogs’ poop might be an attempt to supplement missing nutrient or enzyme.