Sounds, scents, sights — all of these are much different for a cat than a person because they hear, smell, and see things very differently than we do. Moreover, they often perceive things through their senses more acutely than we do, meaning that what’s just right for us may be too much for them. Here’s a look at some of the differences, along with how to accommodate your cat’s exquisitely tuned sensorial attributes so that your pet will feel more comfortable and relaxed in your home.
Sound. Cats can hear high-pitched sounds we don’t even know are occurring. A piano would need to have at least 12 more keys at the upper end to reach the limits of a cat’s ability to hear them. Even the sound of a dog whistle doesn’t reach the upper end of a cat’s ability to perceive it. Thus, if a cat finds a noise unbearably screechy (whirring of the refrigerator that is beyond our own ability to detect or some other sound that doesn’t register for us), we’ll never know. But we can do something about the fact that cats hear much better than we do in general.
Consider that what we can hear from 10 feet away, they can hear from 40 to 50 feet. Thus, what sounds like just the right amplification for you from the television or the radio could come across unpleasantly loud, and sometimes ear-splitting, to them. Try to listen as quietly as possible — your cat has no control over the remote, after all — and most definitely make an effort not to yell at others in the home. The loud noises will reverberate across your pet’s brain as severely unpleasant booms.
Smell. If cats can easily hear what we cannot, their sense of smell leaves us utterly in the dust. What we can pick up from 10 feet away, they can smell from 140 feet — almost half the length of a football field. That hint of lemon in a household cleaner that you find pleasing, a cat will consider an olfactory onslaught. It’s because their noses have as many as 200 million odor sensors, while ours have a measly 5 million. A cat’s sense of smell is so important to her emotional comfort that providing an environment that respects a cat’s olfaction is considered a pillar of a healthy feline environment, say both the American Association of Feline Practitioners and the International Society of Feline Medicine.
With that in mind, be aware of these scents we find refreshing and “clean” but that cats absolutely abhor, and think seriously about doing away with them in your home:
Citrus. Not just the odor of lemon but the scent of any citrus fruit will offend your cat’s nose. Stick with unscented dishwashing detergent.
Banana. An overripe banana may smell extra sweet to us. But to a cat it will smell overwhelmingly pungent and positively disgusting.
Spices and other strong seasonings. These aren’t going to be in your cat’s food, but they shouldn’t be in any of your own food that you offer to your pet, either. She’ll find them overwhelming, and they’ll irritate her olfactory system. (And onion and garlic can lead to anemia in a cat.)
Essential oils. As with citrus, the scent of tea tree oil, cinnamon, ylang ylang, pine, peppermint, wintergreen, and other essential oils are not enjoyable for your cat. Your best bet: scentless laundry and other cleaning detergents. Scentless litter is a good idea, too. Also for your cat’s sake, forgo scented air fresheners.
Touch. Cats generally don’t like to be stroked in a direction opposite to that in which their fur grows. Go with the hair flow, so to speak. Additionally, note that there are nerve endings at the bottom of each strand of fur that send signals to the nervous system. That is, cats are quite sensitive to touch sensations. (But it’s something they can get used to. In fact, the more physical contact you have with a cat when she is young, the more apt she will be to enjoy human contact when she is older.)
By far, a feline has the most exquisite sense of touch in her whiskers, a type of hair for which there is no human equivalent. The 12 or so whiskers on either side of her nose literally help her see in the dark. As she walks, the air around her is stirred up and hits solid objects. The resulting shifts in air current cause her whiskers to vibrate, by which she learns an object’s size, shape, and even the speed at which it’s moving.
A cat also has whiskers above the eyes, on the chin, and on the backs of the lower front legs. These deeply embedded hairs further help her evaluate her environment and how she is moving around in it. Don’t even touch a cat’s whiskers, let alone try to stroke them. She will not enjoy it.
Sight. Cats are nearsighted compared to us. They need things to be closer than we do to be able to see them clearly. And even then we tend to see things more sharply and with better clarity — not a big deal when you consider that cats don’t have to read the paper or drive a car. But they have much keener vision in the dark and can also detect movement better than we can. (They also have greater peripheral vision than we do.) So don’t get annoyed with your cat if she seems to be responding to something in low light. She may be seeing an insect or something else going along that your own eyes wouldn’t be able to detect.
Also, as we explained recently (August 2022 Catnip), cats don’t have the same color vision we do. Blue and yellow are going to stand out to them more than, say, red. For that reason, your cat may have more fun with blue and yellow toys than with games, balls, and feathers of other colors.
Taste. While cats could easily beat us in a sniff test, we’d win a taste test. They have fewer than 500 taste buds on their tongues. We have about 9,000. They can’t even really taste sweet food. In fact, if your cat likes sweets, it’s probably the fat in those foods that she’s after.
One type of ingredient your cat can detect — and detests — is anything bitter. Your pet is probably not going to want any of your Brussels sprouts or arugula. It’s assumed cats’ aversion to bitter foods is an evolutionary adaptation to keep them from eating toxic things in the wild.
