Cats' Picky Eating Driven by Smell, Not Mood, Japanese Study Finds

For years, cat owners have interpreted their pets' wavering appetites as a kind of feline willfulness — a mood, a preference, a small domestic power struggle. Researchers at Iwate University in Japan have now offered a quieter truth: the cat is not being difficult, its nose is simply doing what all noses do, growing accustomed to the familiar and awakening at the new. Through a series of controlled feedings, the team discovered that declining appetite in cats follows the logic of olfactory habituation — a neurological dimming of sensitivity to repeated smells — and that appetite can be restore