One kitten hates the other after they were neutered. What's happening?

This is a question on the Reddit.com website which I would like to also answer on this site. This is quite a typical problem actually. Domestic cats identify almost everything that they encounter through their sense of smell. Or to put it more accurately, they confirm the identity of the object. This happens as you can see when they eat. They sniff food because at close range their eyesight is not that great and therefore, they've got to identify whether it is edible and nutritious through its smell.

One kitten hates the other after they were neutered. What's happening? Image: u/jkamio

When a cat goes to a veterinary clinic for any procedure including a minor operation like a male neutering, they come back smelling of the veterinary clinic. And the veterinarian has probably used a sterilising agent on the site of the wound which also will have a strong smell.

These smells transform the freshly neutered cat into a complete stranger to the sibling. Whereas once they recognised their sibling as a friendly cat who they knew, all of a sudden, they are encountering a stranger who has invaded their space.

In response they hiss at their sibling which is disturbing to their human caregiver. They hate to see this agonistic behaviour among friendly cats.

But the smell will fade and the kitten when then once again become a sibling who they like. And perhaps the smell of the operation can be removed with a damp cloth. In addition, a bit of bedding used by both cats could be rubbed over the cat who had the operation to speed up the return of their body odour to its true smell.

It is nothing to worry about although it is concerning initially. Years ago, I had a brother and sister siblings who got on well. The sister fell into a pot of white paint. It was water-soluble and I immediately washed it off. I also washed off her body odour. 

Her brother no longer recognised her and hissed at her. She groomed herself fastidiously for about an hour to put her scent back and at that point he recognised her and the status quo was renewed.

There is another point worth making. Siblings when they are young are normally friendly towards each other. When they become adults and independent, that friendship may disappear as they become competitors for resources.

That's the wild cat behaviour which looks peculiar in the home of their caregiver. There is no need to be independent-minded when they are both being looked after but of course it is instinctive. They may get along but they may not any more.

If cats were human, they could be declared legally blind. True or false?

Answer: false in my view but we don't really know. If you are a human, living in the UK and perhaps elsewhere, you will be declared legally blind if your vision is 20/200 which means that if an object is 200 feet away you have to stand 20 feet from it in order to see it clearly.

Under daylight conditions, domestic cat eyesight is less good than humans'. However, under dusk and night time conditions it is better I would argue. Domestic cat eyes have evolved, as you know, to see under dusky conditions because that is when prey animals are around.

I was one of the first web owners to produce a pictorial comparison between domestic cat and human eyesight. Other websites have followed since. You can see that page by clicking on the link below:

Cat Vision Pictorial Examples

Two of the image comparisons are below.

How domestic cats see by MikeB

How domestic cats see by MikeB

What colors do cats see? Cat see colours pretty well but it believed they are colorblind to red or red/green (brown). The picture above is intended to replicate this color blindness. However, cats have superior eyesight in other respects which you can read about on the page linked to above the image.

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The problem with deciding if domestic cats will be declared legally blind by human standards is that you can't really apply human standards to domestic cats. You hardly ever can.

Also, despite preparing a pictorial example of comparison we don't really know exactly how domestic cat see the world. We have a good idea but we don't know precisely how they see it.

In my considered opinion, they would not be declared legally blind partly because their eyesight is so good at night. And their field of vision is wider than that of humans.

Cat Field of Vision Compared to Human. Image: PoC.

The big problem with domestic cat eyesight is that they see colours less well than humans and the image is a bit softer.

They say that a dog's eyesight is a little better than that of cats.

I think we can probably argue that overall a domestic cat's eyesight is less good than that of humans because some of their other senses are superior to make up for this slight deficiency. They have a better sense of smell and better hearing.

Domestic cats use their sense of smell to identify objects and they can locate prey animals with their hearing very precisely. These senses compensate and when a cat's senses are bundled together, they are certainly equipped to the same level as humans.

Improving the olfactory and visual environment of full-time indoor cats

I have just bumped into something that I think is interesting and which is particularly pertinent today with so many full-time indoor cats. I believe that often these cats are under-stimulated. I'm not apportioning blame. I just think that you can't bring cats in from the outside and confine them to the inside and leave it at that. The human caregiver has more to do and here are two examples.

RELATED: The big flaw that is never admitted in keeping cats indoors full-time.

Olfactory

This tip applies more to shelter cats than to full-time indoor domestic cats in homes but I think it is relevant. It is called "olfactory enrichment". The experts believe that it is relatively underused in animal housing perhaps because humans have a relatively poor sense of smell compared to cats and other animals.

Catnip gives your cat pleasure. Image: Johnsons veterinary products.

We know that you can buy catnip spray. I think that if you use catnip spray from time to time to spray into the environment you will find that there will be an increasing amount of time that the cat in that home is active because they will be stimulated by the chemical, nepetalactone, which we know excites and stimulates domestic cats.

A study examined the effect of introducing four odours on the behaviour of six zoo-housed black-footed cats. These are small wild cats are known to be the most prolific hunters of all the cats as it happens. The odours that were introduced were nutmeg, catnip, body odour of prey (quail) and no artificial odour and control. They found that there was an increase in their activity with all of the genuine odours with nutmeg causing less of an effect than catnip or odour of prey. As mentioned, catnip is a known stimulant for cats. Although not all cats are affected similarly.

Visual

In a cat's life there are two forms of cat television. There is the human television or perhaps iPad through which you can show images which may help to stimulate your cat. I've seen many videos of cats watching television with great interest. I am sure that you can buy programs for a television designed for cats. You'll need a CD player attached to the TV if you can't access programs provided in the usual way.

Window box for indoor cats. Image in public domain.

Perhaps a better form of cat television is the humble window. Full-time indoor cats spend a lot of time at windows looking out. They can get an awful lot of enjoyment doing that. There should be access to a window or windows in the home of a full-time indoor cat. 

To improve the arrangement you can build or buy window boxes which are inserted into the window and which overhang on the outside of the house. The front of the window box should not be glazed but should be open to the elements with a grill. In this way the cat can both see and smell the outside.

Window box is a firm favorite. Image in the public domain.

I would have thought that such a construction would be a fundamental necessity for any full-time indoor cat or cats. I would have thought where there are more than one indoor cat you could build more than one window box arrangement. They are like mini-catios and you see a whole range of designs. How many households have them? I would say very few relative to the number of indoor cats.

They are actually decorative as well and improve the appearance and ambience of a house.

Cat fascinated with the bellybutton of their pregnant owner

Cat fascinated with the bellybutton of their pregnant owner. Screenshot.

The title to this Reddit.com video is "Cat realises owner is pregnant". But when you watch the video you see this charming cat primarily interested in the smell of this pregnant woman. And it seems to me that this cat is particularly fascinated with the smell emanating from the woman's bellybutton. That's the central object in the short video. 

We are not sure why this cat is so fascinated with that aspect of this woman's anatomy. It must be the smell. And perhaps the smell is linked to the woman's pregnancy. Does a woman smell differently when they are pregnant? I'm sure they do.

Well perhaps, I am not be so sure. Although a woman's sense of smell apparently improves when they are pregnant. This may account for the belief that they feel that "stink". This does not explain why this cat is particularly fascinated with this smell of her bellybutton.

It seems that it is not uncommon for a cat to sniff a woman's bellybutton. On the BabyCenter.com website a visitor said: "My cat sniffs my bellybutton but only since I've been pregnant. It's the strangest thing."

And in response to that comment, another woman said that cats know [when you're pregnant]. This woman is convinced that dogs know as well. Her dog puts her ears up against her belly to listen to the baby. And another member of this website says that her cat has been trying to lay on her belly since she got pregnant. She prevents it happening because it is uncomfortable.

And yet another says that animals know when you're pregnant. One pregnant woman said: "My cat hasn't left me alone since around the time I found out! He constantly wants to be on me or at least next to me with his head resting on my belly or some part of him touching me LMAO! "

She let him do it because she loves him to death. Her husband is deployed she said. I presume that means that her husband is in the military and is deployed to another place for a certain time. Therefore it's nice for her to have "a little extra attention sometimes, even if it is from the cat ha ha!"

The big questions are: do cats know when their owner is pregnant? And what does the smell of a pregnant woman say about her to a cat? Does it tell the cat that she is pregnant? Or that she has change in some way? We know that cats identify others by their body odour. I am sure that cats recognise the change in a pregnant woman. It is a mystery what it means to a cat.

Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Domestic cats can tell where you are from your voice and distinguish between voices

I'm not sure that this study furthers the sum knowledge of cat behaviour but at least it is quite nice to have a study confirm what most of us already know.

The study found that the cats "can mentally picture where others are through cues like sound". What that means to me is that domestic cats can visualise the location of a person by hearing the sound of their voice only. This is called 'socio-spatial cognition'. CNN have phrased the skill thus: Cats can track your 'invisible presence' using only their ears. As I say below - no surprise. How do they think cats catch mice in long grass? Through sound that's how. 😇

The large ears of a male Devon Rex in Russia. Photo: Олеся Бондарева (Russia).

Cats can also distinguish between different people and therefore different voices and sounds produced by them. Finally they can also recognise emotional sounds. This is why cats respond to the sound of their owner calling them.

The ability to create mental images is present in other animals such as meerkats and vervet monkeys.

The study took place at Kyoto University. The lead researcher is Saho Takagi. She said that she has always been interested in cats' hearing.

The researchers placed speakers apart from each other and out of sight. It seems that they used the voices of the cats' owners. The voice of a person was emitted from these speakers at different location. The participating cats recognised the sounds at these different locations.

I think I can provide a practical example. Many years ago I had placed by now deceased female cat in a boarding cattery for 2 weeks. On my return to collect her as I walked into the large room where there were pens, I called out. I couldn't see her and vice versa. A worker there told me that she turned towards my voice. She recognised my voice which to be honest was entirely expected and of course she knew where it was coming from.

ASSOCIATED: Is my cat losing her hearing?

The reason why I think the study is rather pointless is because we know that cats have incredibly mobile ear flaps driven by around 30 separate muscles. They hear behind them and think nothing of not turning their head to towards the source of the sound. They know where the sound is coming from, locate it and don't even bother to turn their head.

ASSOCIATED: What is the hearing range of a cat?

The incredible mobility of their ear flaps supports the notion that cats pinpoint sounds very accurately. In fact they can detect the position of small prey animals by sound alone. This skill is also present in the serval which has enormous ear flaps. They detect small mammals in long grass by sound alone and pounce on them without seeing the prey animal first.

Cats' mythical ability to foresee earthquakes is explained

Recently, in Melbourne, Australia, there was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake (Sept 2021). An English Staffordshire terrier dog began barking and running about before the ground began to shake. The dog ran back and forth and up and down the house barking. It was as if he had predicted that an earthquake was about to take place. The experts say that cats usually leave the vicinity when they predict an earthquake. Dogs do vocalise by barking and howling before an earthquake. I guess that this doesn't always happen but dog owners do report it.

 Cats' mythical ability to foresee earthquakes is explained

However, an Australian veterinarian, Dr. Anne Quain, says that there is no scientific evidence that cats and dogs have a mystical ability to detect when an earthquake is about to happen. She believes that these companion animals react to the foreshock or small earthquakes that preceded the main seismic event and which humans cannot feel. She does not believe that they have an extrasensory ability to predict them.

In the Melbourne earthquakes there were reports, on social media, that some cats were going missing. Many foreshocks occur 24-hours before the main shock. Sometimes the foreshocks can occur up to 30 days before the main shock. This gives companion animals plenty of time to apparently predict the main shock. What they're doing is simply reacting to an earthquake that people cannot experience and therefore it looks as though they are making a prediction of the main shock, which, of course, can be felt and seen by their human caregivers.

Dr. Desmond Morris in his book Cat World says that it has been established beyond doubt that cats are capable of predicting earthquakes but at the time of publication of his book (1996) he said that the experts were unsure how they managed to do it. He did suggest that cats may be sensitive to vibrations in the earth which are so minute that instruments cannot detect them. And he did also state that in the lead up to earthquakes there is a gradual buildup which provides an early warning system to companion animals.

He also suggested that cats may be responsive to an increase in static electricity which precedes earthquakes. Humans can also respond to a dramatic increase in static electricity in that they produce vague symptoms such as headaches. This makes it hard to relate them to foreshocks.

Morris also proposes that cats may be responsive to "sudden shifts in the Earth's magnetic field which accompany earthquakes". Perhaps they are responsive to all three simultaneously. He states that cats do become intensely agitated just before earthquakes. Cats run around the house desperate to escape. The same sorts of reactions occur before volcanic eruptions or severe electrical storms.

Superstitious Christians in mediaeval times or times of that era would put these skills down to cats being possessed of unnatural knowledge resulting in them being burned to death.

Entirely blind cat walks on top of a garden wall and navigates obstacles

Entirely blind cat walks on top of a garden wall and navigates obstacles

Testament to the enormous abilities of the domestic cat. You can see that he is blind by the very cautious way he drops down to the brink wall. And he bumps his nose into a raised section (wooden pole) but just carries on as if nothing happened. He also 'looks around' as if he has sight. But alas not. I love these impressive cats. 

How do they do it? Well firstly, he knows this wall very well. Perhaps he went blind and before he did so he walked along this wall. He can remember those days. Secondly, he can use his sense of touch and smell to help them. And thirdly his whiskers can help guide him because they are very sensitive and can detect air currents around objects. And of course, he has excellent hearing as well. In short, he calls upon all his other senses to guide him. And once he learns where things are, with perhaps a few accidents on that learning journey, he can then use the same route time and time again and give the appearance that he has his sight.

I don't let being blind slow me down as my #ThrowbackThursday demonstrates. #blindcatsrock #catswithdisabilities #cats i hope you all appreciate my backwards shuffle 😹 pic.twitter.com/5oXgjEbRtG

— Jackcat_blind_kitty (@JackcatK) September 9, 2021

Can cats pick up on human emotions and respond to them?

Despite there not being much science in the way of studies on this topic, I believe that you will find that anecdotally, from observant cat caretakers, that cats do indeed pick up on human emotions and they do respond to them. 

Can cats pick up human emotions and react to them? Cats can certainly understand emotional warmth through human body language, behavior and vocalisations. Photo: Pixabay.

But I would argue, I think fairly, that this only occurs when there is some physical sign such as a change in human behaviour, a change in body language or through vocalisations, e.g. raising one's voice or a soft voice. I don't believe that we can credit cats with being mind-readers. Although some people will disagree with me.

Certainly, domestic cat will pick up on these changes particularly if the relationship between human and cat is close because their interactions will be a kind of 'dance' in which their paths cross in the same way every day. If this dance, as I have called it, is interrupted as the human is emotionally distressed in some way and has become passive then unquestionably a domestic cat will pick up on this. They might be confused by the change or they might even be able to detect the emotion of the person.

Cats can certainly pick up aggression in people and they can pick up passivity and gentleness, behaviours due to emotions, which are at the other end of the spectrum. Dr. Bradshaw, who wrote the book Cat Sense, believes that domestic cats are very sensitive to human body language. 

Body language is certainly linked to emotions, very directly in point of fact. And the type body language can be quite subtle. But it goes further than that because, as mentioned, emotions drive behaviour patterns as well and they will alter routines which will also be picked up by domestic cats who have a close relationship with the affected person.

The conclusion has to be that domestic cats pick up on human emotions when those emotions are expressed in various ways as mentioned. It is an obligation of cat caretakers to present gentleness and emotional warmth towards their cat companion with the aim of reassuring them at all times.

It does not take a lot for a domestic cat to become anxious in the human world which despite 10,000 years of domestication is somewhat unnatural partly because people are so much larger than domestic cats which is a barrier to successful integration.

How do cats know when we are coming home?

This page has been moved and added to because I believe that Google will end Blogger in the not too distant future.

PLEASE THEREFORE CLICK ON THIS LINK TO READ MY OPINION ON WHY CATS KNOW WHEN YOU ARE COMING HOME.

How sensitive are cats to heat?

The answer lies in the type of heat: ambient or directional. Cats like to lie in front of a fire. It feels too hot for us but our cat finds it acceptable. This is because the cat's coat protects the cat from the heat directed at her/him. Clive Dalton on Knol, a Google website subdomain, says that cats are not very sensitive to heat and then refers to the cat lying besides the fire at over 50ºC.  A fair point.

He is correct, but cats do not tolerate high ambient temperatures as well as people. Cats don't sweat that much. They sweat on their paws. Cats lose heat by panting and licking fur to use the latent heat of evaporation of their saliva to cool themselves.

Cats can overheat - heatstroke - which leads to rapid breathing, very red mucous membranes, and vomiting.  The cat's body temperature rises to over 106º F (41º C). If left untreated heat stroke can lead to coma and death.

Therefore, cats are more sensitive to high temperatures than us. That, I think, makes them sensitive to heat.

Can cats predict earthquakes?

Cat predicts earthquake and takes cover. Photo: Usonian

Yes, cats can predict earthquakes. We don't know how! It may be due to the cat's acute sensitivity to vibrations of the earth during the build up to the earthquake. Or the cat is picking up the increase in static electricity that is present before an earthquake.

Apparently some people get headaches before and during an earthquake due to the higher levels of static electricity. Another possible reason is the cat's ability to pick up a shift in the earth's magnetic field.

Apparently a cat's behavior can change dramatically just before an earthquake. Cats might:

• run around trying to get out of the house
• carry kittens to safety
• get out of the house if there is access

In the film "Phenomenon" (1996), John Travolta suddenly achieves supernatural levels of intelligence. He can sense the impending arrival of an earthquake, mimicking what a cat can already do. During the middle ages cats were thought to have supernatural powers and were killed as a consequence. Mad world.