Domestic cat's vomeronasal organ acts like a gas chromatograph!

The domestic cat's vomeronasal organ is also called Jacobson's organ. It is in the roof of the mouth. It allows a domestic cat to detect in a very precise way the odours in the air and which enter the mouth when the cat breaths in. You can see that the cat is checking the odours in the air because their mouth is slightly open and the cat is static as if concentrating. This behavior is called the Flehmen Response.

Snow leopard Flehmen response. The cat has his/her mouth open. Photo is a still from the video below.

A recent study did some work on how the vomeronasal organ works and they likened it to the sophisticated human parallel coiled gas chromatograph! In the scientific world, the gas chromatograph is a sophisticated device which is used to separate and identify components in a volatile sample. It measures the various components in the sample.

RELATED: Snow Leopard’s Flehmen Response on Camera Trap Video.

In this study, a computer simulation of the interior of the domestic cat's nose complex consists of convoluted nasal structures to efficiently analyse the chemical make-up of substances.

They simulated the air and odour flow through a "virtual nose" on their computer. The vomeronasal organ contains complex channels making it a hundred times more efficient than a single straight tube which is what amphibians have.

They found that the air inhaled is separated into two streams. One stream of air is cleansed and humidified and the other is delivered to the vomeronasal organ. They decided that the cat's nose is as complex as the dog's. It is more complex than a rodent's.

The airflow which is driven into the olfactory region is then recirculated in parallel channels. Within these channels will be highly sensitive nerve endings designed to detect scent. They send a signal to the brain.

I have mentioned the domestic cat but, of course, all cats whether they are one of the wild species or stray and feral cats as well as domestic gas have the same vomeronasal organ.

I have a picture and video of a snow leopard using this highly sophisticated item of anatomy high on a mountainside which may interest you and which is above.

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.

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.

It's always the smell that exposes homes where there are too many cats

Pretty well every time that a person is exposed for having too many cats it is because a foul odour emanates from their home and a neighbour picks it up and complains to the authorities. It's about the person who owns a lot of cats being unable to manage. And the smell is of urine and perhaps faeces. It is an ammonia smell (urine). Which means that some of the cats are urinating inappropriately and perhaps defecating inappropriately as well. Or, it means that the person in charge is not cleaning out the litter trays properly. Both of these things are happening simultaneously. For the cats they are urinating appropriately by the way. Let's get that straight.

What it looks like in a home with too many cats. Chaos and massive smells. Singapore cat hoarder seeks help. Photo: Instagram page of the rescue who is helping her: Cats of Anchor Vale.

It is likely to be the former because if you have 20 cats in a home there are going to be stresses between the cats leading to inappropriate elimination. It will also potentially lead to spraying to mark territory which still happens even when cats are sterilised. When cats are boxed together like this in a very small space, they cannot enjoy the normal amount of space that domestic cats require which in my estimation is going to be a number of acres. 

Of course, domestic cats are adaptable and they can get used to living with much smaller territories (home ranges as they are called) but instinctively, given the freedom to enjoy a natural home range it would be much larger than can be provided inside a home with many other cats. This results in stresses among some cats.

The foul smell that emanates from these homes which is picked up by neighbours is waste product produced by the cats lying around the home which the person is unable to cope with. It is a carelessness in adopting too many cats combined with that same carelessness in being unable to manage the cats to the point where there is no smell in the home. Can you imagine that? I home in which there are 15 cats, let's say, and no smell. Is it possible to achieve that? It is and it has been achieved.

On December 23, 2019 I wrote about a man who has 15 cats and 22 litter boxes. His home smells perfectly! His name is Peter Cohen and he lives in a beautiful Californian home.

If you read the article, the first point that you will notice right away is that he has 22 litter boxes and 15 cats. This is in line with Jackson Galaxy's advice that there should be more litter boxes than cats. And Cohen puts litter boxes in closets i.e. an enclosed space and critically, because he is a builder and knows how to do this, he creates a negative air pressure inside the litter box closets by running a ventilation fan around the clock which sucks the air from the spaces to the exterior.

Finally, I presume that the air sucked out is pushed up through the roof because there'd be no point in pushing smelly air left and right of the house into neighbour's properties.

So, that's how you do it. And, you know what, the sort of systems that Mr Cohen has set up are going to prove impossible for the typical owner of many cats. Therefore, I have to conclude that if you have 15 or 20 cats living full-time inside a typical home it's going to be impossible to keep the smell down unless you have a huge amount of energy, time, commitment, and intelligence and building skills. If I'm correct in that assessment, it tells us that there must be an upper limit in the number of cats that a person can reasonably manage when they are confined to the home.

And here is the clincher: they have to be confined to the home. If they are allowed to wander around outside of the home the neighbours will complain anyway. Cat hoarders always confine their cats to the home. And they don't bother to build an enclosure in the garden because I guess that would also expose their activities to neighbours. They try and keep things secret, away from the prying eyes of neighbours. This of course exacerbates the problem making it impossible to stop massive odours building up.

And they have to open the window sometimes and in doing this the odour escapes. Because the odour is so pungent even small amounts of this air gets into neighbours' properties. It just depends how tolerant the neighbours are as to whether they complain or accept it.

I am therefore drawn to the only sensible conclusion which is that local authorities must have bylaws restricting the number of cats that a person can own to around five. This, I think, is a reasonable number which is manageable. And this rule will apply to any country anywhere. Although most of the news about cat hoarding comes from America it does not mean that cat orders only live in America, it happens anywhere. It's just that most cat news comes from America because they love their cats which, by the way, makes it very strange that they declaw them, an act which is totally against love between species.

Cat refuses to drink water except from cupped hands. Why?

This is about a feline drinking problem and a cat whose owner posted a request for help on the Reddit.com website. He said that his cat would not drink water except when he cupped the water in his hands and presented it to him. He's tried everything possible including changing the water receptacle and using different kinds of water including bottled water. He could not go on doing this because he wasn't at home all the time and his cat was becoming dehydrated. 

I'm not sure how the story ended because it's about six years old but he received some good answers mainly about changing the receptacle. One person thought that the cat could not recognise the water and suggested that he put a ping-pong ball in it.

Cupped hands holding water. Photo: Pixabay.

I would suggest that the problem might be to do with the odour of the water. When it is cupped in the hands of the cat's owner the water would smell of the body odour of the person. Cats are very much into the scent of their owner. They recognise their owner by their scent. It is possible that this cat is very anxious and timid and needs the reassurance of his 'surrogate mother' (owner) to drink and he achieves this by drinking from the hands of his owner. He will even lick fragments of water from his owner's hands rather than drink in the normal way.

If I am correct and it is about the smell of the water through the person's hands then the problem may be resolved by using a water which is as near as possible without smell, such as bottled water, pouring it into a receptacle, ideally a glass receptacle, and dipping his hands into that receptacle and aerating the water with his hands for about 20 seconds. 

That should deposit some of his scent into the water to make it smell a bit like his hands. That is quite a big guess but I have a feeling that the problem is not about recognising the water but about the bond between the cat and the person which in this instance is very strong. The cat needs to feel that he is being nursed by his owner. I think it's an act of nursing, a throwback to when he was a newborn kitten.

In fact, this cat may have been weaned too early and this may be an example of behavioural problems due to early weaning - not uncommon. That's my best guess and I think it is worth a try. Unfortunately, the problem was discussed about six years ago, as mentioned, and therefore my thoughts cannot be relayed to him in comments on the Reddit.com website because comments have been archived.

Indoor cat loves the smells of the outdoors

From @henrythecoloradodog: “Sometimes I swear B is actually a dog.” #catsofinstagram pic.twitter.com/1K0V5Drc5E

— Cats of Instagram (@catsofinstagram) November 12, 2020

I've taken the liberty of deciding that this cat, who is so enjoying a car ride, lives inside their owner's home all the time. When they're taken outside in a car ride and the window is wound down all the smells of the exterior come to her. You can see she's taking it all in. She loves the breeze and the gentle smells of the countryside. Her dog companion is enjoying the journey as much. I could be wrong about the cat being full-time indoors. But you can see the owner has brought her cat on a lead which is sensible as the cat is allowed to perch at an open car window while the car is travelling but this looks like a trip that the owners have taken for both their pets to give them a bit of fun and stimulation and also make a neat little 10 second video.