Well, you see, you have got it completely backwards. They are not using their tongues to clean their fur. They are using their fur to clean off their smelly tongue.
One of my cats had breath that (as my mother is fond of saying) would knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon. Apparently he had some pretty bad plaque and gum disease. We avoided taking him for a cleaning due to the fact that he has a heart condition and we didn’t want to risk the anaesthetic, but finally it got bad enough that it would have been more dangerous not to risk it, so this Tuesday he went to a dental specialist and got a thorough cleaning and four teeth extracted.
His breath now lovely. I mean, it’s not flowers or anything, but it’s…basically nothing. Which is lovely. Especially compared to the fetid miasma it was before the procedure.
What I can’t explain is why most of the time all five of my cats smell sweet, but every once in awhile they’ll develop a distinct “cat poop” odor centered around their shoulderblades. Nowhere else, just there. Any ideas?