Carrion Luggage

The Sniff Test

Here, Smithsonian reports on a thing we've always known, but apparently science had yet to confirm.

    Cats Can Recognize Their Owner’s Scent Compared to a Stranger’s, New Research Suggests  
In an experiment, domestic cats spent longer sniffing cotton swabs with the scents of unfamiliar people than swabs with the scent of their owner

Well, except for the glaringly obvious mistake in the headline: cats don't have "owners." Cats have staff.

Your cats may act aloof, but they likely know more about you than they let on.

It's still perfectly acceptable to use the possessive pronoun with them, though. This is because the possessive isn't always possessive; sometimes, it's relational. I got screeched at once for using the phrase "my wife" because it "implies ownership." Well, first of all, if I say "my school," am I implying that I have legal ownership of the school building and the ground it sits on? If I say "your country," am I making you its dictator? No. No, I am not. It very clearly means "the school that I go to" or "the country you live in."

Other examples of the relational possessive pronoun may not be so obvious in context, but saying "my husband" or "your husband" or "his husband" in no way implies actual possession, any more than "your kids" does. Responsibility, maybe. Not ownership. If I could change just two things about English grammar, it would be to invent a different pronoun for such relational situations, and to invent yet another one for discerning the you-and-me "we" from the "me and others but definitely not you" we, so there's no question that when I say "we're going to a party," I don't mean you, but me and my friends.

That would get really complicated really fast, but it would also eliminate a great deal of drama. And sitcom plots.

But I digress. Also, cats aren't aloof (okay, some are, but that's a vile stereotype). They're just not as needy or demanding as those... other... popular pets. Which is why I live with them.

Research has shown that cats can tell when you’re speaking to them and that they recognize the voice of their owner—they just might choose to ignore it.

And yet, they keep using that word. It is inappropriate.

Now, a new study published in the journal PLOS One last week suggests cats can distinguish their owner’s smell from the scent of a stranger.

As a cat-tender, I was already sure this was true. Still, as always, it's good to have science backing you up.

The article goes into the methodology they used. I won't repeat it here, because it's kind of gross. Yeah, science is important, but it can definitely be gross. Look, at least it's not as disgusting as the article on vultures I featured a while back.

But this is, to me, the really interesting part:

The researchers also analyzed video recordings of the cats inspecting the tubes and found that the animals tended to sniff familiar odors with the left nostril. They mostly used the right nostril for unfamiliar scents. Scientists have previously observed similar behavior in dogs and other animals like fish and birds, according to a statement from the journal.

That, I wouldn't have suspected. There might be an explanation for it:

“The left nostril is used for familiar odors, and the right nostril is used for new and alarming odors, suggesting that scenting may be related to how the brain functions,” says Uchiyama to Kate Golembiewski at the New York Times.

Or it might be something else entirely; this is what science is for, as noted:

Carlo Siracusa, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine who was not involved with the study, says to the New York Times that he would be wary of relating the nostril use to brain function without research that scans the felines’ brains.

Still, it's a hypothesis; it can be supported or falsified by further experiments. It's the beginning of science, not the end.

The thing that sent me, though; the part of the article that convinced me that this was worth sharing in the first place, was in the last place I looked:

Even if more research is needed, “I really commend this group of scientists for being successful in engaging 30 cats in doing this stuff,” Siracusa adds to the New York Times. “Most cats want nothing to do with your research.”

Fortunately, in this case, curiosity didn't kill the cat.