Cat Stats

In honor of our volunteer of the month, Dr. Cuevas, Magnificent Mutts would like to present some fun cat facts!

  • Cats have only 473 taste buds, but humans have over 9,000!

    20% of cats were adopted from a shelter.

  • One unspayed female cat and her offspring can potentially produce 450.000 cats by the end of 7 years!
  • Cats can make over 100 vocal sounds, while dogs only have about 10. (Have you ever seen the barking cat video on facebook?)
  • The technical name for a hairball is bezoar.
  • Sadly, 71% of cats that enter animal shelters are euthanized.
  • Cats sleep about 2/3 of their life, so by the time they are 9 years old, they have only been awake for 3 years!
  • Female cats tend to be right-pawed, and male cats are more likely to be lefties. Just like humans!
  • To get down from a tree, cats have to back down because the points on their claws are going the same way. (They wouldn’t be able to hold on going face first.)
  • Cats are North America’s most popular pets! There are 73 million cats versus 63 million dogs.
  • Americans spend over $200 million per year on cat litter alone! And over $1.5 BILLION on cat food!
  • A cat rubs against people to be affectionate and to mark its territory with the sweat glands around their face. (All cat owners know who the true owners are!
  • Cats can see better than humans because they can see in dimmer light and have a wider peripheral vision. However, they don’t see color as well, and researchers believe that grass appears red to cat.

*This list was complied from The Guardian magazine and from random history.com*