Catnip Crunch Cat Treats

Cats are trainable. Not in the way dogs are, but a cat will learn to come when called, go into a carrier voluntarily and tolerate a nail trim if the payoff is good enough and the sessions are short enough. These are the payoff: two calories each, crunchy shell, soft centre, gone in a second.

Catnip is in the centre rather than dusted on the outside, so the smell survives the bottom third of the pouch. About a third of cats have no response to catnip at all. It is an inherited trait, not a training failure. For those cats, the fish content usually carries the treat on its own.

The genuinely useful application is carrier training. Leave the carrier out permanently with a door tied open, drop two of these inside every time you pass, and within a fortnight the carrier stops being the box that means the vet. This costs one pouch and saves an annual wrestling match.

Ten a day is the ceiling for an average 4kg cat, and that assumes you have taken a corresponding amount out of the main meal. They are small, which makes it very easy to hand over thirty without noticing.