THE CAT NOSE – SOME INTERESTING FACTS
While cats are definitely in the back seat compared to dogs when it comes to sense of smell (sorry crazy cat people), they are still leaps and bounds ahead of us humans.
Some like to refer to the cat’s sense of smell as its most important sense, and when living in the wild and fending for themselves cats certainly rely on it for a number of essential survival skills. They use their sense of smell for establishing territory, locating a mate, hunting, and for finding food and determining if it is fresh enough to eat. When it comes to the domesticated cats we keep as pets, there are a few features of cat scents and their sense of smell that can be useful to understand.
Common Smells
Perfumes, cigarette smoke, and air fresheners are all often found in or around our homes or on our clothes to varying degrees. Cats are very sensitive to these foreign smells and may become reactive. We recommend that people are aware of this when interacting with our cats in the shelter, remembering that any scents will be much stronger to the sensitive kitty nose. Last month on Facebook there were some posts circulating about pet owners unknowingly poisoning their pets with the use of essential oil burners in the home. A long list of essential oils was included, and it was stated that their use may make your pet very sick. While it is known that cats may dislike the scent of citrus and tea tree oils, the dose makes the poison. While essential oils should never be applied to the skin or coat, normal use of an oil burner in a well-ventilated home is unlikely to make your pet cat unwell.
Litter Box Complaints
Complaints about kitties not using their designated toileting area, i.e. the litter box, are fairly common. The first thing to check here is that the box is clean and without odour. Due to their enhanced sense of smell, a litter box that seems non-odorous to us may actually be offensive to your pet. While trialling different locations, different substrates, and different types of litter boxes all come into play, the first thing is to ensure is that the box you want the cat to use is up to their standards. This may involve providing two trays, so there is always a clean one to use, or cleaning the box multiple times each day.
Detecting Pheromones
Beyond the nose, cats have an extra organ specifically to detect and process pheromones. Pheromones are hugely important to cat communication. Have you ever seen a cat flehmen?! There’s a new one for the vocabulary! It is when a cat gives a raise of the top lip and slight opening of the mouth to expose the cats vomeronasal organ to the air to help detect pheromones. This organ is part of the cat’s olfactory (sense of smell) system and it works together with the nose. Most animals have one, whereas humans only have the remnants of this organ which is no longer functional.
Producing Pheromones
Cats have scent glands along the tail, on each side of their forehead, on their lips, chin, and between the pads of their front paws, that produce pheromones. Behaviours such as rubbing their face on objects, rubbing up against furniture and owner’s legs, scratching on a scratching post or furniture, or spraying/marking with urine, are all designed to leave a cat’s scent within their territory. These behaviours deposit pheromones on both physical aspects of their environment but also on social contacts (other cats, humans, and other species). The social function of scent signals is to recognise members of the same group, and signal to leave non-members alone.
Cat Communication
Olfactory signals are very important for cats in both communication with other cats, and in leaving different signals for themselves around their environment. This gives them some sense of control over their environment. Facial rubbing – when your cat smooches you or gives you a head boop – is used in areas of the territory where the cat feels comfortable and unthreatened. Within the shelter we try to keep bedding or boxes that a cat may have scent marked on with that particular cat if it moves within the shelter. This provides a familiar, soothing scent in the new space and thereby reduces stress. Urine spraying is often an indicator of a potential threat and this kind of marking is generally left in response to fluctuations in local social dynamics between cats i.e. social stress.
Shelter Applications
Within the shelter we use a pheromone product that contains a chemical copy of one of the facial gland pheromones secreted by cats. We have diffusers throughout the centre and like to spray it on the blankets of stressy cats. The product is called Feliway (produced by Ceva) and has been shown to reduce the stress of cats. Here we are recognising the importance of scent to cats in feeling safe and secure.
In conclusion, being aware of our kitties super sense of smell and their ability to communicate using pheromones can help to avoid problems. Whether it be wearing less perfume when interacting with cats or keeping a cleaner litter box, helping to minimise stress in order to prevent spraying or providing cats with calming pheromones in order to make them feel safe.
Dr Tess Vitesnik BVSc(Hons)
TEN LIVES VETERINARIAN