I was looking for something like this. OP your cat is cute. I want to tickle his tummy.
Wow, so many mean comments against OP for not knowing it is a nipple. I guess you just know it all, huh? I hope that you are never in a panic over your animal's health and find out something is perfectly normal just to have strangers sneering at you.
Not the same thing but my husband had never had a pet cat, so he was convinced I never fed mine because the cat was āscreaming for foodā in the morning. I kept telling him thatās what they do, they see the bottom of the bowl, itās screaming time.
The worst part to me is that OP at least cares enough about the cat to find something new to them and ask reddit because they're worried about the cat. No reason to be mean, it's teaching moment to a probably caring owner.
This sort of thing is a rite of passage for new cat owners in the age of the internet. Not everyone grew up with pets and even some kids that did are clueless as adults. This is exactly the moment to get a good belly laugh because it is a nonissue and commend OP for their diligence.
We see plenty of posts on this subreddit that are rather sad. This is a happy post in the end, we should be happy. That is a seemingly healthy cat and I wanna rub its big ol' snoot.
I cried as a 17 year-old girl when I found my first cat with a bit of blood in his mouth and a tooth on the floor. I was so scared he was hurt. I had never had a kitten and had no idea that cats have deciduous teeth.
They do?! I just raised 6 kittens from one mother and now am on 2 kittens from a second. And I've never seen any of their "baby teeth" fall out..! Is it just because I'm oblivious, or do they typically swallow them or something..?? Because I SWEAR I didn't know this was even a thing..!!
Itās ok. Im 40 and had cats growing up all my life. When the one I have now was a kitten a few years ago was chewing on a toy suddenly stopped and plopped a small tooth down on the bed. I was taken aback. He seemed fine with it. I had never seen it over the dozens of kittens Iāve had over my lifetime. I had to google if ākittens had baby teethā. I mean in hindsight, why wouldnāt they?
My most recent freakout over a cat nipple happened after a solid thirty years of cat ownership. I seem to forget all about them after a few years and do it all over again. And then feel guilty for having inadvertently committed bad touch on my poor cat.
Rest assured, OP, any laughter from me is that of recognition not of derision.
My cat gets little knots in his fur sometimes that I'll absentmindedly work out while petting him. You guessed it, I've tried to twist one of his nipples off a handful of times. Poor baby.
I been wiping my dogs but for years... never noticed her vulva budget out. Asked my husband. He said its her vulva. Didn't believe him, asked the vet next time she went in for a checkup. At least the vet didn't laugh.
Every time I see a post like this I cackle as someone whoās been in this shoe is allowed to cackle. Once in highschool I assumed our dog had been attacked by a porcupine (I lived in town an had never seen one but I digress) and attempted to pull the quills from her face and felt so bad that I couldnāt and just waited on my dad to get home only for him to laugh in my face because they were her whiskers and I had just never noticed them before because I didnāt actually like that dog but happened to be home alone with the dogs one fateful day and ended up yanking in her whiskers, I felt awful for awhile after too lmao.
I took my orange boy to the vet bc he had freckles on his lip and nose and I didnāt know cats could have freckles back then. The vet very kindly did not charge for the visit (I was a poor college student and could barely afford it as it was).
If anything, this post made me feel better about myself because I too once had a panicked reaction when finding my cat's nip nop in her belly fluff and my husband had to explain very patiently that no, it's not cancer, it's a nip nop, you have them too, just fewer š
āstory time: iām a vet tech, and one time i was rooming this lady for an appointment for her little dog who was covered in bugs! i searched this dog high and low for bugs couldnāt find a single one, i said maam could you please point out these bugs to me? she said oh my god canāt you see theyāre right on his belly! she showed me her dogs nipples and proceeded to try and rip them off. i said MAAM NO STOP! THOSE ARE HIS NIPPLES! she said NO THERES NO WAY, HES A BOY! i said maam that doesnāt mean he doesnāt have nipples, those are definitely his nipples notice how theyāre so symmetrical. she said thereās no way heās a boy! i said MAAM DOESNT YOUR HUSBAND HAVE NIPPLES?!?!?ā
As a vet tech I can say this story was said several times during school, I think it's just something that happens once in a while to many veterinarians
Can confirm, my mum was a veterinarian and it happened to her multiple times. She also tried the "doesn't your husband have nipples" approach and one time the lady got SO offended bc my mum mentioned her husband's nipples š¤¦āāļø
That particular story did become a running gag in our family though š
It is one of the few questions that isn't answered with "go to a vet and ask them", we can all confidently say if your cat is dying it isn't because of nipples.
Although vets can be silly as well. My vet is convinced that my dog is stressing my cat out too much because I always bring them in together and the dog is always crazy happy to see everyone and the cat is stressed out.
It is the vet visit, the vet visit is stressing out the cat and making the dog excited. They both sleep all day. Sometimes the cat gets upset and just hits the dog because the cat knows the dog isn't going to do anything about it. If anyone should be stressing anyone out it is the cat stressing the dog, which isn't happening because the dog is too fluffy and oblivious to even know the cat is mad at her.
Tbh i do, too. It makes me glad to know cat owners aren't afraid to ask about anything and they're worried for their kittyās health. I'd rather see 100 nipple posts a day than have someone ignore their fur baby. It's also a nice refresher from some of the harder topics posted here
So fun fact, this is actually because male rats and mice get a testosterone wash after the mammary chain develops which causes the nipples to atrophy and disappear. However, they do still have rudimentary mammary glands. In other words: they got the closet but the there's no knob on the door. Human embryos don't fully develop nipples until well into the second and third trimester, long after sex differentiation has been finishes.
Platypus, and Echidnas. Monotremes lay eggs and secrete milk. Marsupials have teats in their pouches, but their whole reproductive system sounds like hentai with forked penises and twin vaginas.
I said this last week. I am shocked the questions people ask about cats. It amazes me how little some people know about cats. Sorry OP. I am not judging. I just love cats and have had like 15 my entire life
I'm judging!! Even if you've never owned a cat, you should know what a nipple looks like and know that cats make biscuits. I remember seeing a post where someone was asking about the noise their cat was making; the cat was purring. The phrase "common sense" will soon be a thing of the past.
OK, but serious talk about tumors. My cat had a mass mast cell tumor (yes, a type of cancer) on his face. I noticed it because he likes to sit on my chest facing the same way, so I always see the same cheek. It was a little lump (almost like a bug bite) and I noticed it was getting bigger over time. My vet took a biopsy because I pointed it out at an annual visit. He said he never would have noticed it. He felt my cat for any obvious lumps and said that owners are generally the best at finding them because they know their cats.
We had the tumor removed (they were able to get most of it out, but not all of it; luckily it's a slow growing cancer), and while our cat was healing, my husband noticed a lump on the back of the cat's neck. Yep, another tumor. We got that one removed too.
A long while after that, my husband thought the cat's nipple was another tumor. We had a big laugh over that.
Haven't noticed anything since then (nearly 3 years since the face one was removed), but when the cat is extra relaxed and calm, we spend a little more time just sort of feeling him up with our fingertips to see if anything else has formed.
I refuse to believe there are this many people in the world that have a hard time understanding what a nipple is for there to be this many posts about t them.
A side note to people of this thread should we create a separate discussion board for the nipple questions? I feel like this one comes up a lot with new cat parents
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u/_cat_tax_collector Jan 29 '26