Did you know that every cat has a unique nose print? Every dog does too! Like our human fingerprints, every line and bump in that cute little heart-shaped nose tells a story unique to each cat.
Unlike each nose print, though, all cat noses are sensitive sniffers. With over 2 million receptors, they’re even more sensitive than most dogs and 14 times better than ours. That makes their sense of smell critical.
Cats rely on their noses for so many things: finding food and (let’s be honest) judging food, dodging predators, reviewing their territory and locating their friends—including their human ones.
Scent is their first developed sense, with kittens able to locate their moms and siblings long before their eyes open. Meals with mom are important drivers for that development.
Cats have far fewer taste receptors on their tongues than dogs, making their sense of smell even more essential. That’s why food cold from the fridge isn’t as appealing to them as food that’s been warmed slightly. Warm food is more like normal prey in activating those receptors.
You may have seen your cat sniff something and then open his mouth slightly with a funny near-smile. He’s activating an extra sensor that cats have in the roof of their mouths called a Jacobson’s Organ.
In a sense, this allows them to taste smells when they breathe them in over the organ. This is called the Flehmen Response, for your cat trivia enjoyment.
We’ve seen cats do this after sniffing other cats, other cats’ markings, the markings of other animals and even humans, including sniffing their guardian’s dirty socks! You can be assured you’re part of their clowder when they covet your socks 😻.
This highly developed sense of smell makes cats extra sensitive to the scents we humans like to surround ourselves with. Plug-ins, scented litter, perfumes and even scented body products can all be very repellant to our feline friends.
These products can also be dangerous. The artificial chemicals they contain are never tested our companion animals, so should not be regarded as safe.
In fact, a well-known cat litter company, Dr. Elsey’s, recently discontinued their best-selling scented litter after research proved that scented litters can be stressful and even painful to cats. As Dr. Elsey says, “Scents make no sense when it comes to cat litter.”
Since cats are so dependent on their sense of smell, anything that interferes with that can cause stress. So stress from scented litter contributes directly to many feline health and behavior problems like urinary diseases and litter box avoidance. And we all know that litter box issues can make cats lose their homes, or worse.
Cats are masters of monochrome style, color coordinating their noses with their fur color. Black or gray cats usually have black or gray noses, respectively. Brown tabbies usually have peanut-butter brown noses. Orange cats usually have orangish or pinkish noses, often with benign freckles.
Those Instagrammable pink cat noses usually come with cats who have white coats. However, tuxedos, calicos and other cats with a variety of white, black or orange patches can have both pink and black on their noses in an infinite patterns.
There’s a recent trend on Etsy to make custom jewelry from your cats’ nose prints. If having a cute heart-shaped nose necklace is too hard to resist, please use a company like Flutterbye Prints. They use nose print images–not actual prints of noses–to create their art.
That’s a good compromise, since rubbing your cat’s nose in something sticky to capture the texture would feel like smothering to them. As Dr. Elsey says, do what’s best for the cat!
Tap here for more tips on how to have a happy cat!
Sara Ferguson is the Director of Happy Cats Haven where cat noses of all colors and kinds are saved and celebrated.
