You Smell Like You've Been With Another Cat....

 Have you ever been away from your home and your independent kitty comes to greet you (if you're lucky) does a double-sniff on you and then gets all needy and pushes up on you? It's kind of like a double take -- but it's when your kitty becomes obsessed with the smell of the rim of your shoes, or acts like your fingers smell like butter or something just isn't right...This happens to me when I have innocently TOUCHED an unfamiliar dog, cat, or human baby. It's like my cats zero in on alien aroma like its some kind of cardinal sin and they give me a wounded look like
"You JEZEBEL!" 

Now if this sounds extreme to you, I ask you to test your cat right now, go outside and rub someone you don't know (haha) or even better, squeeze a squirrel if you can catch one, and then offer your hands to your cat to see their reaction.  It's priceless.  They seldom recoil in disgust, most often the cat will wrap itself around you and lick you relentlessly with its scratchy tongue until it has absorbed the stench of your offending sin from your body.  Now, if your cat doesn't react that way, it just doesn't love you as much as my cats love me. LOL😀

I think I know why my cats do this.  My husband has offered the theory that they are incredibly possessive of me, my older daughter thinks they are waiting for an excuse to consume me and are just checking to see if I'm still alive by my reaction, and my younger daughter thinks the cats believe I am another cat and they are cleaning me so I can smell just like them.

But I agree with my husband and think it's because they just can't seem to get close enough to me and are incredibly jealous.  The best way to get a cat's attention is to totally ignore it.  I have the perfect example.  You've seen those pets interrupting yoga videos?

I know this behavior is not unique to cats.  Dogs (and most pets in general) hate to be ignored.  And who can blame them?  Until they can speak and tell us to fetch them a beer or teach us tricks, they are at our mercy and they have to be either heartwarming and cute or annoy the bejeezus out of us.

Anyway, back to the double-sniff.  I think once your cat has imprinted upon you like a baby bird, if it smells any eau-de-wtf or if you dare to touch another pet without its express consent, they need to investigate your infidelity.  They mark you with their cheeks, butts and paws which all contain scent glands. So when that friendly neighborhood cat comes up to say "hi" doing figure-eights around your legs--that's its way of saying "I know you! Mine!"  They may drool on you when they get a nice massage and come at you face first, and then arch their backs and use their paws on the nearest scratching post (your couch perhaps?) or "make biscuits" on you--massaging you with those paws--again pushing those pheromones ALL OVER YOU.  This is all feline for MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!

I wish I could say that cats confuse me, but after owning so many cats, I completely get it. Cats are the only animals who can get away with this subtle rubbing and make it seem like they are just saying hello.  But it's the equivalent of a dog lifting it's leg and saluting a fire hydrant.  But take it as a compliment. When you get all this attention and a cat wants to smell where you've been, just remember, you don't own a cat, it owns you.