Pet Grooming

Most people check weather apps instead of relying on their pets to predict weather signs. But still, many people, especially older generations who live in rural areas, believe that pets, such as cats and dogs, can predict the upcoming weather by grooming themselves.

For example, some people in China think that when cats wash their faces and dogs groom themselves, rain will fall in three days. People in the UK believe that if cats wash behind their ears, rain is coming. Japanese people thinks that it will rain soon after when cats wash their faces. People in the Netherlands and North Europe believe there will be strong wind after cats scratch themselves and they believe that there will be cold and damp weather after dogs groom themselves.

But the fact is that this is not a reliable method of forecasting the weather. Both scientists and veterinarians do not support this myth and there is no scientific evidence to prove the connection. The BBC article states, “Cats and dogs groom about 10 to 30 times a day, but in most places, rain only occurs on 10 to 25 percent of days. This means that the prediction fails more than 70% to 80% of the time” (BBC). If it really rained after cats and dogs groomed or washed their faces, which is the small number of apparent successes, it is most likely only a coincidence. Studies on pet activities have not found any consistent increase in grooming before rainfall. In fact, pets often lick their paws repeatedly on completely dry, sunny days because they feel itchy or they want to try to cool down.

Also, many long‑term pet owners have observed that their own pets lick their paws dozens of times per day, but rain rarely follows. In most cases, rain arrives without any grooming of the pets at all.

All in all, the idea of cats and dogs grooming themselves as a way to predict weather is an unsupported folk weather myth.