HandicappedPets.Net

Interesting! I thought I'd heard of something like that before.

Frijole here does not have a tongue. no one knows how she lost it. she was part of a managed feral colony and when spayed she had been normal. 2 years later she ran up to one of the caretakers meowing and meowing. the was thin and filthy.
they took her to their vet who said 'your cat has no tongue"
so who would take such a cat? Me, of course.

She has from the tonsils back which is how she can swallow without choking. She has figured out how to eat, and even to drink. She puts here entire lower jaw in teh water dish adn moves it up and down to wash water to the back. Her biggest problem is grooming. Being a cat she of course wants to groom. She ends up drooling all over herself and coating herself with slime. yuck. So she gets regular baths and often wears shirts to give her skin some protection from her grooming efforts. She has gotten a little tubby and is very sweet.

So depending on how much of the tongue remains, yes they can. As long as they can swallow without choking they can.

Amazing story! I had a foster boy once who'd had his jaw blown off, but he still had at least a good bit of his tongue, somehow.