Berthoud Weekly Surveyor | Covering all the angles in the Garden Spot

Why do dogs sniff butts?

By: David Tisue | The Surveyor | September 29, 2022 | Pets

As a proud owner of a Cardigan Welsh Corgi named Pickles, I have often seen her sniffing every dog’s butt she can. Sometimes at our local dog park, it is in a chain of several dogs in what would seem like a sniffing competition conga line. But what does it all mean?

I know it is a way for a dog to say hello, but it turns out it is more than just a greeting. A dog can smell using 44 times more olfactory receptors than us meager humans can, making its nose 100,000 times more sensitive than its owner’s. In addition, dogs devote about 30% of their brains to detecting and identifying odors, while humans use a mere 5% to detect smells. In addition to the regular olfactories, dogs have a special organ called Jacobson’s that is directly wired to a dog’s brain. It is how a puppy knows his mother’s identity and can even detect things with no odor. Together the two ways a dog smells make it have a huge communication pipeline.

The information gathering involving nose to rump tells more than just hello. The anal glands collect odorous fluids that concentrate those smells around a dog’s tooshie making each dog’s scent unique. From a whiff of your dog’s bum, another dog can sense a whole story of their recent lives, from health and diet to mood and gender. Dogs can smell if they are pregnant or in heat. They can detect a whole conversation going on, similar to small talk at a dinner party.

Dogs can remember if they have sniffed that particular heinie before and recognize their derriere as friend or foe just from one whiff. If they haven’t seen each other for a while, a whiff of the caboose can be a catch-up on what has been happening quicker than watching the latest housewives reality show! Though I wonder why they must sniff a dog’s badonkadonk several times within a few minutes. Is it like gossip? Are they checking to make sure that Porkchop really did sleep with Bubba? So, should you let your dog smell peanut’s tuchus? Absolutely. It will give your dog the needed information and how to proceed. It does, however, give a whole new meaning to the term booty call.

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