Why is my cat’s tongue prickly?

If you’ve ever been licked by a cat, you’ll notice its tongue feels different than the soft tongue of a dog. The rough, sandpaper feeling of a cat’s tongue serves a few purposes. For one, it’s a built-in brush that cat’s use for grooming. But also, since cats like to hunt, the small backwards-facing barbs on their tongue help keep their prey in their mouths once they catch it.