Why Does My Dog Roll in that Smelly, Stinky Whatever?

Miles and Riley were up on Boston Hill yesterday with their respective human companions; Cheryl and Chris. Riley got in a little trouble.

Seems he found a ripe skunk carcass to roll in. Nice. Not only did he get the tantalizing odor of rotting flesh on his coat, he got the bonus eau de skunk as a complement. Really nice.

Miles refrained from the rolling action but, according to Chris, he was quite envious of Riley's find and new scent.

What's up with that? Seems like dog's are always finding and frolicking in some of the most objectionable stuff imaginable. At least to us. To them it's an entirely different experience.

 

As we already know, the dog's sense of olfaction is far more developed than our feeble human sniffer sense. Depending on how you measure it, a dog's ability to smell is somewhere between 100X and 1000X greater than ours. My wife is very thankful for that, by the way.

 

The sense of olfaction is a very important communication tool for dogs and this highly developed sense of smell is very important for successful hunting in wild dogs.  The latter fact may provide a clue about one theory regarding why they like rolling in smelly stuff.

 

Dead animals are an important source of food for wild predators. Winter killed elk or moose can be a windfall for a pack of hungry wolves as the snow begins to melt in the spring. If a pack member finds such a prize they may roll in the carcass to take the scent back to the pack. Kind of a "hey, look what I found!" communication. "Follow me, it's just over that ridge, or just follow my newly acquired scent and you'll run right into it," might be the human translation.

 

Another interpretation might be that Riley was laying his own scent on the dead skunk in an attempt to claim the prize as his own. That might be why Miles didn't partake. "Shoot, that Riley got to that skunk before me and now it's all his," could have been Miles' lament.

 

There are other theories, too. Another involves hunting and suggests that a predator might be trying to mask his own scent with something dead to throw off the prey species. Olfaction works both ways when it comes to hunting and if an elk smells a dead skunk instead of a live wolf she's less likely to be on alert. Advantage: wolf.

 

Finally, we have to understand that they are dogs. While we may really like the smell of lilacs, dogs may find lilac shampoo totally disgusting. How embarrassing to show up at the trail head or dog park with that nauseating aroma. 

 

"What will the other dogs think?" your pooch worries. "Oh look, a pile of dog poop and just in time."

 

"Now let me off that leash, I've got some damage control to do."

 

Problem solved, for the dog at least. 

Comments

[seth]

my dog rolled in an old rotton bag of anchovies last night and i was just thinking that, that was really weird. Has anyone heard of this?

[Dr Larry]

Olfaction refers to the sense of smell. the nose is an olfactory organ. BTW, Miles and Riley both rolled on a dead skunk today and came home smelling pretty bad.

[veterinarian]

What is sense of olfaction?

- Mathew J.