08-08-2025
Does your cat sniff you? How cats communicate with us
Cats play it cool and aloof, but new research shows they can recognise their owners by scent. A Japanese study found felines sniff longer at strangers proving your cat knows your smell, even if it pretends not to care at all. Clinical animal behaviourist Alice Chau joined RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime to explain what cats understand about their owners and how they communicate with us. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full below).
'They absolutely will recognise us,' says Chau. When a cat goes in by your leg and smooths its body around your leg, is that identifying you as well? 'Yes, it's basically the way they mark the objects and individuals that they consider to be their own social groups. If they're rubbing your legs it means that they have put their name on it. They consider you part of this social group, you're in the same gang now,' she explains.
From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, the relationship between humans and cats
The study found cats smell strangers for longer. What's happening there? 'I have speculations. I think they're probably taking longer time to process these new scents of these individuals - it's a little bit like a computer, you run your data and try to remember these individuals for future interactions. So I'm not surprised the research shows these kind of results.'
A listener texting into the programme asked: We have our cat approximately 5 years, he comes to the back door for food but runs away when we open the door. We leave food out all the time for the cat, but can't understand why he's afraid of us?
'Usually for cats like that, it will take a long time to get them used to the idea. We all have our past and sometimes we don't know what happened to them when they are little, so maybe they have traumatic experience, they have bad experience with humans. But just like us, we all have our psychological baggage and with time we'll get better,' she says.
'One of the common mistakes that people make with cats like that, is that they're trying to be friends, they approach the cat. In fact, the more you approach the cat, the more worried they are - they worry what we are going to do to them. It might feel counterintuitive, but one of the best things to do is actually look away and ignore them, maybe sit down to read a book or look at your phone or whatever. Once you're not staring at them, they feel so much more comfortable and eventually they'll come to you.'
How do you treat cats for anxiety? 'That's just one of the tricks up my sleeve, there are many other things we can do. One of my biggest passions at the moment is using cat training as a form of therapy,' says Chau. 'The same kind of things that we do to humans [to treat anxiety], we can easily convert it to a cat version. For example, we will use training to get the cat to do repetitive movement. Repetitive action is a form of active meditation and that will help anxiety as well.'
Is how you talk to a cat important? Or how you act or stroke a cat? 'I think it's equally important,' Chau says. 'But I do strongly believe that our body language means a lot more to the cat than our voice. It doesn't mean that our voice doesn't matter, I do think that the tone of our voice matters - there has been another study recently to suggest that they recognise up to 20 words of our language, so they do actually understand.'
'But our body language, how you approach a cat, is so, so, so important and I think a lot of people don't realise how important it is. It's totally different than how we approach a dog.'
