Wild (and Sometimes Crazy) Wednesday – The Cat’s Tongue

A cat’s tongue is uniquely designed for a variety of purposes and, as you will notice with your own cats, they use their tongue a lot. Cats do a lot of grooming, and lapping, and tasting, and they’ll sometimes even try to clean the lotion off your hands or give you a little lick-kiss.

I like to try getting pictures of cats sticking out their tongues, because while that tongue is useful, it’s also cute—well, cute when you see it sticking out of a cute kitty mouth.

Some people are creeped out by the feel of a cat’s tongue. It is rough, and for a reason. It helps the cat clean himself well and it is instrumental in the lapping process. There’s a new study out that says the tongue is capable of holding pockets of saliva which is used in the fur-cleaning process. And the cat tongue itself is a perfect tool for keeping the cat’s fur clean—except for, experts in this study said, the Persian. Their fur is so thick and deep that the cat tongue cannot effectively penetrate to keep the fur clean to the roots and tangle free. That’s why, with some cats, brushing and combing are necessary to keep the fur from matting. So of course someone has invented a new brush that is supposed to mimic the cat’s tongue made especially for cats with difficult fur—I’ve had cats like that.

Oh, and the brush helps to remove allergens from the cat’s fur as well—at least that’s how it’s advertised. It’s called the licki brush. Check it out here: https://pdxpetdesign.com/licki/ And let me know if you have one, have tried one and how it works for your cat. You don’t actually hold it in your mouth when you use it do you? Now that seems a bit odd to me.