Dog Scents

I swept and mopped my house today, no small feat, with six dogs insisting that the floor is their toilet. But finally, I had gotten ahead of the pee puddles. I started to make dinner, then had to stop to kick the dogs out of the kitchen, since they can't be trusted not to steal food from the counter every time I turn to another part of the kitchen. For some reason, I let Rocky stay in the kitchen with me. He was off in a corner on a dog bed, minding his own business and not bothering me.


I turned back to the pizza dough I was kneading, but soon became aware of a very non-bread like odor. Ewwwww. Smelled like cat musk. Ewwww. The odor was stronger next to the refrigerator. I stuck my nose in various places around the fridge, but couldn't figure it out. Had the cats peed on the floor? Guess I didn't mop very well, I told myself, and figured I'd be in for another bout of mopping after dinner.


Soon kids started wandering into the kitchen drawn by the lovely aroma of pizza dough on the griddle. Their noses quickly wrinkled after a couple of good sniffs. "Ewwww," they said, "why does it smell like cat piss?" My 18 year old daughter lit a coffee scented candle, but it just added coffee scent to the aroma of cat.


Eventually, overcome by hunger, we all ate. As she was putting her plate in the sink, my daughter stopped to pet Rocky, and then screeched, "It's him! It's Rocky!!
He stinks!! Aaaaaagggghhhh - my hands!! I touched him!! My hands stink!!!"


Ahhhhhh - the source of the stink. The famous dog roll in smelly stuff outside. Apparently Rocky had found an outdoor cat toilet and had enjoyed a good romp in it.


I gave Rocky a bath - a rare event in his life. My dogs don't usually stink. I stick my nose in their fur all the time, and honest, they don't stink. They smell like dogs, but a clean dog does not have an unpleasant smell. Which leads me to the question - why do dogs roll in disgusting, smelly junk? Donkey doo, cat mounds, dead birds and squirrels, rotting fish - it's all yummy and irresistible to a dog.


The popular wisdom is that the dog is trying to disguise his smell so he can sneak up on prey. And that makes sense, sort of, except when you remember that dogs don't generally stalk their prey, they run it down. I think it was dog trainer and writer Patricia McConnell who offered an alternative reason. Dogs immerse themselves in strong aromas for the same reason humans do - it's perfume to them. They simply like the way it smells. She goes on to write that most of the things that dogs roll in are food-like for a dog - rotten meat, and the feces of prey animals, which often smell like the animals themselves (after all, you are what you eat). We humans, she reminds us, use plant-based scents, fruity, flowery, herbal scents - also things we like to eat. When she encouraged one of her dogs to sniff her perfumed wrist, the dog wrinkled its nose and turned its head ---"Ewwwww, why does my human roll in such stinky stuff?!"


For whatever reason, dogs will occasionally shock our senses with fragrances repugnant to us. What's great about dogs is that they forgive us so readily after we have bathed them with a shampoo they find equally repugnant.

Woof!