“Many people might not know that cats are actually nearsighted. I didn’t know this either. I used to think that cats could remember my face, but turns out, those big, watery eyes actually can’t see us clearly at all. So, how do cats recognize humans? In fact, cats have two main ways to distinguish people in their world.”
-
Sense of Smell
Cats have only 1/10th of our vision, but their sense of smell is over 40 times stronger than ours. Cats have over 240 million scent receptors, which makes them highly sensitive to smells. The scent of their owners is constant and unchanging, so they will definitely recognize us. They often come to rub against us, whether it’s rubbing their legs or nuzzling their heads against our bodies. This behavior is a way of marking their scent and asserting their territory. It might be hard to believe, but cats can even smell scents from as far as 2.4 kilometers away! So, sometimes when I go outside and pet a stray cat and come back, mine will keep sniffing me because it detects the unfamiliar scent of the other cat.
-
Sense of Hearing
While cats’ hearing isn’t as sharp as their sense of smell, they are extremely responsive to their owners’ voices. But why do they sometimes meow and not respond when we call them? Well, this is simply because they don’t want to engage with us at that moment. In a cat’s eyes, we may not be considered a person, but rather a distinct combination of scent and sound. However, this doesn’t mean they don’t love us. On the contrary, when a cat remembers our scent and voice and only responds to their owner’s voice, it means that our home is the safest territory for them — and it’s the greatest sign of their affection for us.
So, do you now understand how cats recognize us?
