# Why do dogs have more odor then cats? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 18, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814 "2025-06-18T18:17:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/41 "2025-06-24T17:15:27Z")
We have coyotes, great horned owls, and fishers. All are crepuscular or night-time hunters. We also have foxes, but they are small, and shy, and rarely tangle with cats, which have pointy edges and are nearly their size. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/42 "2025-06-24T17:30:46Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > We live in different worlds. It’s completely standard here for cat owners to have a catflap in their backdoor - the cats come and go as they please and residential streets are full of wandering cats as a result - much to the chagrin of my leashed dog. Over the last few decades, this has changed a lot in my neighborhood. Mostly due to people finding their dead cats’ heads left on the lawn. Coyotes. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > We have coyotes, great horned owls, and fishers. A great horned owl swooped over us when we were walking our dog (miniature dachshund) when I was in high school. Scary. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/43 "2025-06-24T17:32:55Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Over the last few decades, this has changed a lot in my neighborhood. Mostly due to people finding their dead cats’ heads left on the lawn. Coyotes. Yep, this. Cat lovers make “cattios” against their houses so the cats can kind of go outside yet not be eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/44 "2025-06-24T17:51:35Z")
They also eat poop. I used to call our Cihuahua snack dispenser, as that’s how the other dogs treated her. I had to make totes into litter boxes, so my daughter’s dogs ( that I’m stuck with) would quit eating out of the regular litter box. 🙄 Dogs are stinky. They seem to like it that way. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/45 "2025-06-24T19:19:02Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I think that when that person said “indoor pets” they were referring to the fact that most pet cats either don’t really go outside at all or don’t really stay inside at all. I’ve known people who had “outside” cats that mostly live outside and “inside” cats that stay inside but never people who walked their cat, or let their cat out into a yard and expected it to come inside every night. Nearly every dog owner does one or both of those. This is exactly what I meant. Most cat owners I know keep their cats indoors all or virtually all the time. (I live in a small city.) No dog owners I know do this. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/46 "2025-06-24T19:30:16Z")
For a different data point, I live in a highrise in a dense citified hunk of otherwise generic suburbia. Of our 400-something apartments, probably 150 have dogs. Might be more like 250, it’s hard to tell. But there are lots and lots of them. It’s actually rather refreshing to take an elevator ride with zero pets in it. Anyhow, most of these dogs are purse dogs. Or they’re taken outside in a baby carriage and wheeled around. Others are walked on a leash 2x a day to poop. I’ve never seen one of these dogs loose. Not indoors, not outdoors. Always on a string on the rare occasion their widdle feetsies are allowed to touch the ground. I have to assume there are cats living here too. I’ve never seen one except in a carrier. Presumably about to take a ride to the V-E-T or similar. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/47 "2025-06-24T19:36:06Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > If you say yours all come in every night , I’ll believe you - but I’m actually talking about something more like @SanVito describes minus the cat flap , where the cats come and go as they please , wander through the neighborhood and might come home before the owners go to sleep but if they don’t, they will be out all night I’ve had cats in the past who were difficult to get in and sometimes stayed out all night; but both the current crew and their immediate predecessors seemed to get in the habit and always or almost always show up in the evening. They do often ask to go out again after I think it’s too late, and get mildly annoyed at being prevented. I agree about the fenced yard – mine are loose on the farm, and as I said I doubt they recognize the human boundaries though cats do have a sense of the boundaries of their own territories; but that’s not going to coincide with the human ideas of where the boundaries are. My parents, after I’d left home, did live in a couple of places where they had an outside cat yard – not only was it fenced around the sides, but also the top of the area was covered with chicken wire or something like it. If the top hadn’t been covered the cats would probably just have gone over the fence. I can’t have a cat flap\*; they’d populate the house with live mice. I want the cats to keep mice out of the house, not to bring them in! \*not that kind of cat flap, anyway. Older cats often get a cat flap, loose skin under the belly. I often have one or more of those around. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > My cats came in (almost) every evening, before dark. It might be relevant that that’s when the wet cat food was distributed. Yup. I do that too and I also strongly suspect that it’s relevant. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > There are a lot more predators of cats from dusk to dawn than there are during the day around here, so bringing the cats in was important. Here too – in particular coyote. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/48 "2025-06-24T19:48:52Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I can’t have a cat flap\*; they’d populate the house with live mice. I want the cats to keep mice out of the house, not to bring them in! Yes, when i first had cats i propped the door open for them in nice weather. Then one started bringing baby bunnies and chipmunks into the house. Both live and dead. So we stopped letting them pass through the doors without a human to check. “That’s an outdoor toy”, i used to say to my cat. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/49 "2025-06-24T20:24:46Z")
I imagine the cat’s reply amounted to “Yeah, so?” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/50 "2025-06-24T20:57:06Z")
No, i wouldn’t let her in, because she had a chipmunk in her mouth. She opened her mouth to complain the the startled chipmunk ran off, and she looked at me crankily. (And similar incidents) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/51 "2025-06-24T22:01:36Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > i wouldn’t let her in, because she had a chipmunk in her mouth. I’ve learned to recognize the “mouse in mouth” meow. It has a particular sort of semi-muffled sound, even when it’s fairly loud. Do not open door wide to the mouse-in-mouth meow. Sometimes the creature in the mouth isn’t a mouse. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/52 "2025-06-25T10:50:04Z")
My cat used to steal food from the neighbours’ houses and bring it home through the catflap. I’ve had a loaf of bread and a whole (hot) leg of lamb before now. Live mice also. And a dead pigeon which she proceeded to shred/pluck feathers all over the kitchen floor. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/53 "2025-06-25T13:56:59Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > …didn’t put out anything offensive I grew up with a series of black Labradors, their ability to put out offensive smells was impressive. Though it was not from their coat, rather their alimentary system. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814/54 "2025-06-27T17:03:03Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > rarely tangle with cats, which have pointy edges “Murder mittens” is the Reddit term! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-dogs-have-more-odor-then-cats/1019814.md?page=2)