kissin kitties, why do they do this?

hi,
i am cat sitting my sisters cat Mickey and i have my own cat Kali.
the two took awhile to work things out- didn't get along at first- but now they play together.

my cat started right off, when Mickey first arrived, by approaching her face first and sniffing her face (at which point, Mickey would hiss Kali away)
NOW they approach each other this way, and don't hiss at all, but instead linger, nose to nose, sniffing each other, for several seconds. Almost looks like they are kissing!


Why do they do this?


oh, and MY cat (the little pervert!) will approach another cats rear end (or even a dogs!) to sniff.
i know dogs do this, but i didn't know cats did- and in fact, MY cat is the only cat i have ever seen do this! geez, it seems so gross for such a pretty lady!

anyone know what this is all about? i have had many cats also want to sniff my breath....
weird!
do they want to know if i had something better for dinner than they did?LOL

I think they smell each other to recognise who is who, like we look at faces. It seems that would be enough, but all of mine do the butt sniffing, too. I have a little female that jumps in my lap and cries until I let her look in my mouth. I have another one that used to like to sniff my navel. I was glad when he outgrew that one! Nothing like waking up to a cold kitty nose there. I guess a lot of them just have little weird things they do.

Sniffs your navel?!?! that is so cute! (and weird)

well, i guess as long as they know what they are doing....


my kitty will also get on my chest when i am laying down and present her back end to me (to sniff, i guess??) i guess she thinks it is the polite thing to do!LOL

they are funny critters, aren't they?

Yes, they are. Fred will present his bottom to us, too. EEWWWW!!! We found if you turn you head away and make a little "sniffy" noise. It will make him happy and he will go away. Anything to make them happy, I guess.

My boy thinks he needs to sniff Ophelia *there* and she really hates it. (Smart girl! )

I saw something a while ago where some man actually did a study to figure out the whole butt-sniffing thing in cats. He was feeding a feral colony, and had multiple feeding bins. Every so often he put tuna in one bin, the same bin every time. The cats got to know that particular bin was the only one that would ever have tuna in it. Generally they would feed from all the stations, except obviously when he put tuna in the one. His experiment was with one very friendly cat, the only one who would consistently come over to him for pets and take food directly from him. He gave her tuna (again, not consistently) and when she returned to the colony the rear-end sniffing would occur. When she had eaten tuna, all the cats would rush over to the bin where the tuna had been put before, whether or not there was any there that day. So, the sniffing may be to see what the cat had eaten, if they had gotten anything good that they should be sharing.

Interesting theory, and interesting study.