Summer is here, and you want to give your cat a good bath, and the scene ends up losing control as expected. Cats are stressed, and you are stressed too.
You just want your cat to be soft and fragrant, why is your master howling as if you are abused? Can cats really not take a shower? Why is bathing so scary for them?
When water is written into DNA, domestic cats are different from dogs. In their domestication process, cats do not completely lose their wildness, and their shapes and behaviors are very similar to their wild cat ancestors.
If you trace back to the evolutionary tree of domestic cats, you will find that cats don’t like water, but they are actually written in their DNA.
Modern genetic analysis shows that almost modern domestic cats around the world have DNA that is almost the same as African wild cats (sylvestris lybica). It can be inferred that this night hunter who lives in grasslands, deserts or bushes is the ancestor of domestic cats.
African wildcats live in arid environments and have few opportunities to access vast waters, so they do not need the skill of swimming to get food.
They can obtain the necessary water for survival from their prey, and use their strong kidneys to ensure that they do not dehydrate. In addition, large carnivores that appear near the water source have wiped out their interest in swimming. This inability to feel and even alertness towards water spread to domestic cats.
On the other hand, cats are afraid of water, which is not only an evolutionary behavioral preference, but also related to the cat's furry shape.
Most cats' hair is not waterproof. If the animal's hair is taken under a microscope to observe, you will find that the surface of the hair is covered with layers of scales like tiles.
Generally speaking, the smaller the contact angle between the scale layer and the water droplet, the more likely the hair is to be soaked in water. The scale layer of cat hair shows a wavy structure, and the angle with the water droplets is often less than 90 degrees. Compared with long, finger-like marten hair, it is not very waterproof.
Once immersed in water, every hair of the cat may be soaked in all directions. The extremely heavy wet hair not only makes the cat unhappy, but also makes the cat unable to move and easily lose balance.
In addition, hair also has an important function of regulating body temperature for cats.
The good insulation effect of animal hair is actually achieved through the air in the hair gap. The scale layer increases the gap between the hairs and stores a large amount of air, thereby slowing down the air flow rate and reducing the speed of heat exchange.
Once the hair is wet, the cat not only loses the insulation layer of air, but also constantly loses heat due to the evaporation of moisture.
The physiological feeling of a cat taking a bath may be similar to the fact that you are wearing a whole set of hydrophilic sweater and sweaters and jumping into the swimming pool, not only making you feel awkward but also trembling with cold. No matter how you think about it, it is not a pleasant experience.
So, how do cats keep themselves clean?
Cats licking their hair is actually oiling
First of all, the "cleanness" in cats' cognition is somewhat different from people.
Cats' sweat glands only grow on meat pads without hair coverings. They will not sweat, but will only produce oil. Oil is not "dirty" for cats. On the contrary, grease can moisturize the fur, exert a good protective effect, and sometimes even bounce off small raindrops.
Therefore, when cats lick their hair in daily life, they do not need to remove oil, but instead stimulate the sebaceous glands and apply the oil evenly on the hair.
What they want to clean is, in addition to the dust and parasites that adhere to the fur, the most important thing is the odor on the body. As ambush hunters, their instinct is to eliminate the odor and avoid letting the prey "sniff" the wind and escape.
This requires the use of tongue - the cat's own bathing artifact. People who have been licked by cats will definitely remember the sandpaper-like touch. The surface of the cat's tongue is covered with barbs. Like human nails, the main component of these protrusions is keratin.
Under the microscope, the hook-shaped protrusions present an arc-shaped structure like a shoehorn. Its functions integrate collaring, cleaning and massage, which is very efficient.
The directions of these protrusions are not fixed. When the cat's tongue encounters a knotted bundle of hair, the protrusions will rotate deep into the inside of the bundle, eventually loosening it.
And, by rotation, flexible protrusions not only clean the cat's longer and sparse outer fur, but also reach their skin and shorter down-like bottom hair near the skin.
In addition, the arc-shaped structure allows these protrusions to absorb saliva using surface tension and apply it to cats as natural shower gel. During the day, the cat's tongue can transfer 48 milliliters of saliva to the fur.
In other words, every ten days, your cat will use a bottle of ordinary mineral water to bathe yourself.
When you help the cat take a bath, it not only washes off the oil it has worked hard to save, but it may also stain it with the smell you feel fragrant and pungent. In the cat's opinion, your troubles are increasing its cleaning workload.
Don't wash cats before you have to
There are exceptions in the huge cat family. Some breeds of cats, such as the Bengal cat like a leopard, do not move like a mountain when taking a bath, and play with water as a monkey. Everyone would exclaim when they saw it, because they were afraid they were not just fake cats.
In addition, there are certain individual differences between cats, just like people are instinctively afraid of heights, but some are still keen on bungee jumping. Some cats are not a breed that is not afraid of water, but they can still live in harmony with water calmly.
Most of these brave cats have been exposed to life surrounded by water since childhood. If you start to contact water during the kitten stage, then the cat's ability to accept water is always stronger than that after adulthood. Therefore, they can adapt well to the feeling of being wrapped in transparent liquids.