Encounter in a sunny window

What lies lurk in kisses.
~Heinrich Heine


Don't be fooled for a moment, this was not a romantic moment. It was a premeditated ploy to gain access to the sunny window where the lovely black brother was enjoying the morning rays. They were both left with the classic 'open mouth sniff'. Essentially, the cat opens it's mouth to suck in air into the Jacobson's organ and take a really deep sniff of the odor,"tasting" the air and to offer the cat additional sensory information. In cats, the organ is a pouch above the hard palate that communicates with the nasal and oral cavities through a duct that opens behind the incisor teeth. Although the cat sort of looks like it's smiling or grimacing when taking a big whiff, the act of opening the mouth and drawing up the air to the Jacobson's organ is called the flehmen reaction. I can tell you, Max's breath is deadly. He has nasty, icky fourteen year old cat teeth, yuck! The encounter ended with Raspberry launching into a big grooming session to mask her defeat, Max soon left the window in search of his new favorite bed, the empty turkey box from last week.

Flehmen reaction

Deciding to give up...

Post encounter grooming begins

Max