Does Your Cat Smirk at You?

Has your cat ever looked at you with what seems like a smirk or sneer on his or her face - sometimes called the Elvis sneer?  Despite the popular opinion about how cats view the world and their humans, this expression might not be a judgement from your cat!  Chester is the king of the Elvis smirk at BCR, but we know there's no judgement with him!

Chester's smirk, and those on other cats, could be an actual, physiological part of a cat called the flehmen response.  For the non-vets reading this - and that's most of us! - the flehmen response is somewhere between smelling and tasting.  Cats have two extra ducts, called nasopalatine canals, in the back of their of their mouths.  They open up into the Jacobson's organ, which is an extra olfactory sensor for the cat, allowing for a kind of smell/taste sense combo.  This actually does give cats a sort of sixth sense!  (We know they have those!) 

When a cat really wants to go deep into figuring out what's around it - in the wild this means what other cats have come through and sprayed or left other scents around and what danger might be lurking - it activates the flehmen response with that distinctive disgusted look!  When you see it, your cat is delving way into whatever stimulus triggered it.

Maybe not too surprising, male cats do this more often than female cats and it's a trait shared by their big-cat cousins.  Believe it or not, humans back along the evolutionary chain used to have a similar ability but it went away over time. 

So, the next time your cat looks at you "that way," glance around and see what he's checking out!

CLICK HERE for an in-depth look at the flehmen response.