Behavioral responses of domestic cats to human odor | Hacker News Reader

Behavioral responses of domestic cats to human odor

journals.plos.org

33 pointsTomte13 comments

> and the cat–owner relationship scale (CORS)

I like this CORS much better.

But what if you pet another cat? Does it trigger a cross-origin violation?

Yes, a jealous and violent one in my experience.

I didn't realise how much cats depended on smell to identify us and each others, until I bathed one of my cats with a perfumed soap - once I dried her and let her free to mingle with the other cats, they suddenly started treating her as a stranger and went into defensive mode, growling at her. Even she was confused for moment to what was happening and why her siblings were suddenly acting like that. I calmed them down somewhat by rubbing a towel over their bodies and rubbing the same on her sister's body. They finally settled down when they all had sniffed each others butt and perhaps also recognized her through her meows to me.

We use scent as one way to enrich our cat's life. Whenever we come back from, say, a walk, we let the cat sniff our hands (particularly interesting when we meet other cats on the walk!) When we are putting away a food shop he posts up on his stool and gets to sniff everything before it goes away. He is only really interested in protein smells and other critter smells, but the whole business must be engaging enough that he keeps coming back to sniff the tomatoes etc. as well.

Whenever I make food or drink, my cat insists on getting a whiff. She continues to insist this, even though she's no fan of my coffee. She also insists on sniffing my alcoholic beverages, which is funny because cats hate both ethanol and citric acid so she has quite the negative reaction. But she will be back the next time I mix it up.

At one point she would sniff our backpack straps, with over a decade of accumulated sweat and human residue and go absolutely mental, rolling around in them like it was catnip.

She's also just an extremely attentive cat so it might all just be a game to her.

I was expecting that the smell of humans would make them sleepy.

I was expecting videos of cats sniffing things, not text.

"Ah, yes, the scent of my manservant. It bores me."

Cats are very sensitive to smells and the smell of hands that touches them

That's why it's good catiquette to let the cat smell your finger before you pet it.

Petiquette.

Don't do this if you've been petting another unfamiliar (to them )cat.. lot of videos online of them reacting very angrily to that.

I've always done this simply because I enjoy her screening me for whatever.

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