I remember reading on here a while back that cats have very sensitive noses. Not in the smelling sense, but in the sense that they generally don't like it when people pet their noses because their noses are physically sensitive. After I read that, I made it my mission to start petting my cats on their noses. I usually just boop them in the nose very gently, but sometimes I will pet that front section of their noses where the fur is going downward/forward instead of upward/backward like it is on the majority of the nose. When I say gentle, I mean it; sometimes I don't even touch their noses and just go until I feel their fur.
I'm not really sure what I hoped to accomplish when I started, I just thought it would be fun to see if my cats liked being pet in a way that most people's seemed to dislike (I'm guessing that's because you have to pet them almost insanely gently, or they won't like it). The crazy thing is that it worked. Now my cats go out of their way to bump my hand with their heads and push their noses into my fingers. My older cat, who was never one for sitting on laps or being pet for a long time, is suddenly begging me for pets every time I sit at my computer. He'l jump up on my lap and his entire face will be covered in purr-snot within a few minutes (it's one of the more gross cute things I have seen any cat do). He was starting to come around to liking pets before I began nose booping, but he's gotten more cuddly by leaps and bounds since I started. So, if you have a somewhat aloof cat who just doesn't seem to want to lay down and be pet for a long time, you may want to try this nose booping method to build trust and get your cat to like being pet more. It might have something to do with them always smelling you since they can't easily wash off the tip of their noses, but whatever the science behind it is, it worked wonders for my cat who I had given up on ever being a lap cat.
I'm not really sure what I hoped to accomplish when I started, I just thought it would be fun to see if my cats liked being pet in a way that most people's seemed to dislike (I'm guessing that's because you have to pet them almost insanely gently, or they won't like it). The crazy thing is that it worked. Now my cats go out of their way to bump my hand with their heads and push their noses into my fingers. My older cat, who was never one for sitting on laps or being pet for a long time, is suddenly begging me for pets every time I sit at my computer. He'l jump up on my lap and his entire face will be covered in purr-snot within a few minutes (it's one of the more gross cute things I have seen any cat do). He was starting to come around to liking pets before I began nose booping, but he's gotten more cuddly by leaps and bounds since I started. So, if you have a somewhat aloof cat who just doesn't seem to want to lay down and be pet for a long time, you may want to try this nose booping method to build trust and get your cat to like being pet more. It might have something to do with them always smelling you since they can't easily wash off the tip of their noses, but whatever the science behind it is, it worked wonders for my cat who I had given up on ever being a lap cat.
