Why do cats and dogs like smelling things that smell bad?
By apples99
@apples99 (6556)
United States
May 21, 2009 3:26pm CST
My cat dosent like the smell of anything good, like when I put on my after shower body spray or any sort of perfume my cat makes a funny face and squints is eyes like its the worst thing hes ever smelled, it seems that he only likes the smell of old stinky socks, and garbage, oh and of course old shoes, why is that do you think, I have my theories, but id love to read yours tell me why you think animals like cats and dogs only like bad smells?
2 people like this
2 responses
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
21 May 09
What are 'good' smells to us - the ones that we think smell like roses or lilies of the valley are just so false to a cat or a dog. Their noses know that those smells never came from real flowers and, anyway, they are disgusted that we would hide our real scent that way.
A 'good' scent for a cat or a dog is not necessarily what we would call a pleasant scent. For then it is not whether it is 'good' or 'bad' but much more how much it tells them about whatever left that scent. What seems just an unpleasant smell to us humans is, for a dog or a cat, a full bouquet of different pieces of information. What we think of as pleasant smells are really quite uninteresting to an animal and some of them are positively chemical and hurtful to their noses, even if our sense of smell simply cannot detect it.
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