The Dog Charmer by Tom Shelby

What’s the Sniffing and Rolling All About?

Dear Dog Charmer,

I have a mini poodle named Frankie. She’s lovely in every way, except that she constantly rolls in disgusting stuff. The worse the smell, the happier she is. Plus, she spends forever smelling what looks to me like nothing but a piece of dirt or grass. The other day I could have taken a nap in the time she spent sniffing a broken branch on the ground. What’s up?

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

First, let me thank you on behalf of Frankie for giving her the time to sniff to her heart’s content. A bloodhound has up to 300 million olfactory cells in its nose. We two-leggeds only have about 5 million in our noses. My guess is your Frankie has in the vicinity of 200 million in her nose.

Mark Twain said, “If dogs could talk, nobody would own them.” That’s because when you come home, and Frankie smells your pants, she knows where you were, who and what you touched, and what you ate. Frankie’s nose is the encyclopedia of her environment.

Lisa, that broken branch that bored the heck out of you was a trove of info to Frankie. Perhaps a chipmunk sat on it while eating an acorn, and was then chased away by a rat snake that caused the chipmunk to defecate in its escape. If Frankie could, she would describe the pivotal life or death moment of the chipmunk but, alas, you’ll forever remain clueless of the momentous drama that unfolded under Frankie’s nose.

That boring piece of dirt that she incessantly sniffed could have been a battlefield between a multitude of ants killing a beetle to bring back to their nest. We’ll never know, but Frankie does! 

As for rolling in disgusting stuff, thank the dog’s wolf ancestry. To this day, if a wolf is hunting a deer it will roll in deer poop to disguise its scent, and possibly get closer for a kill. To our domestic dog, what I believe is left of that wolf instinct is just a “feeling.” Frankie the mini poodle has no intention of trying to take down a deer. She will be expecting her dinner when she gets home.

But rolling in that poop—it just “feels” right. Thank you Mr. Wolf!

Dog Charmer Tom

Tom Shelby, “The Dog Charmer” Cooperstown author, answers pet owners’ questions on training their dogs. E-mail questions to dogsrshelby@msn.com. Tom’s book, “Dog Training Diaries,” was judged one of the three best training books by Dog Writer’s Association of America. Look for his new book, “Dog Training: It Ain’t an Accountant’s Job.”