Cat Food- Why the smell??

[Bottesford]

I know cats have a very keen sense of smell so why does cat food need to smell so strong? Feeding our cat results in the whole house stinking of meat! Surely with the superb noses cats have, it shouldn't need to smell of much at all!

[Lucky Rescue]

Cats, unlike dogs, need a stronger stimulus to eat which is why cats with stuffy noses will often not eat at all.

And different brands of cat foods have different smells, some not bad at all.

[Bottesford]

So there just fussy gits then! Sounds about right for our cat! He prefers raw meat like chicken or minced beef to his own food.

[tyr]

Wow - I am really not busy at work today. I have been posting like a mad woman!

Anyway, cats do need a stronger stimulus to eat. Even though their scense of smell is 4x stronger than that of humans. I do not know how they stand those stinky little cat boxes, but I am so glad that they do!!! Since they have so little taste buds compared to that of a human they rely on their sense of smell to tell them if the food is fresh or not. Sometimes they will not eat because it has gone bad, and of course we do not know that - we have to rely on them to tell us. Sometimes, they may have a stuffed up nose and since they cannot smell they will not eat - again because they cannot tell if it is good or bad.

I came into this one and got a chuckle out of your house stinking - that sounds awful I know. It is funny because I complain about that all the time. I have three little piggies and my house stinks to heaven whenever they are being fed. My newest one in so tiny and when he eats he gets his whole face right in the bowl and just sucks it back! He is so funny. It brought me back to when Fidel was a baby. Though the gross part is, he really loves the fish flavour - so this is what I give to him. He always comes running to me for kisses with food all over his face and when I clean it off - if the other ones do not get to hiim first - his little apple head smells of fish for hours!!!

[melanie]

here is a dum one for ya,
when i was a teenager my friend and i were about to feed her cat. i said to my friend 'i wonder why the cat likes that grose stuff, perhaps it jsut smells like that and tastes great' so i then dared my friend to eat a big spoon of the cat food and test it for us. well she did, and she actually swallowed it and siad it was not that bad. i reckon she said it to look tough

[Iggette]

Hubby can't stand the fishy smel......but waddareya gonna do huh.....lol