It’s Andy here today. Ann is in OurLittleCorner adding some poetic class to our blog.
Ann and I were chatting with our neighbor Jen while watching our dogs on their “play date” when the conversation turned to the question of why dogs sniff each other’s butts. What could they possibly get out of such an unsavory activity? I volunteered that perhaps it was a way for a dog to check out what another dog has been eating (sort of like backdoor “garlic breath”). However, even though we’ve each witnessed this doggy ritual a million times, none of us seemed to have a good answer.
This prompted me to do some of my own sniffing around on the internet to see what was up with this canine obsession with butts. What I discovered was not only fascinating but it made me question my assumption that we humans are more “evolved” than our four-legged companions. Let me share some of the reasons why.
A Dog’s Nose — A Canine Version of ChatGPT?
First off, I quickly realized that the term “sniff” trivializes the magnitude of what is actually going on inside a dog’s snout — and simultaneously in a dog’s brain. A piece posted on UnderstandingAnimalResearch.org claims that dogs have around 220 million scent receptors making them 10,000 times more accurate in the smelling department than we humans. It goes on to say that a dog’s nose “is powerful enough to detect substances at concentrations of one part per trillion – a single drop of liquid in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools!” That’s a staggering figure (and probably why you seldom run across a dog doing laps in a pool).
And that’s not the only astonishing thing about a dog’s sniffer. They have a strong “right nasal bias,” something called “sniffing lateralization.” This means that dogs start sniffing with only the right nostril and will only shift to using the left nostril if the smell is familiar or “non-aversive.” This coincides with how the canine brain is organized — the right hemisphere controls new and potentially scary information while the left hemisphere handles the routine and non-scary stuff. Hence, a dog’s sniffing is inextricably linked to how it thinks. Check out this article from the NIH National Library of Medicine web site if you would like a more technical account about all of this with lots of big words .
A Dog’s Butt — Not What I Thought
And then there’s the dog butt. My suggestion that dogs may sniff butts to reveal culinary choices was based on my assumption that under that tail the only game in town was the anus. That’s not so. On either side of the anus dogs have “anal sacs” that release “a cocktail of smelly chemicals, including fishy-smelling trimethylamine and pungent propionic acid and butyric acid.” Researchers have concluded that these secretions contain “information-packed pheromones” which serve as chemical communication signals between dogs. So much for my simplistic back-door-onion-breath hypothesis.
What Information Does a Dog Butt Reveal?
What a dog learns from a whiff of this “cocktail” is impressive. Without going into detail (no pun intended), here’s a list of the kinds of information a butt sniff can uncover.
- Health status
- Diet
- Age
- Gender
- Reproductive status
- Mood or emotional state
This all tells me that rather than a form of primitive and crude social interaction, butt sniffing among dogs should be seen as an example of a highly sophisticated and complex exchange of vitsl information. And, unlike much of the communication among us humans, there is no faking it for dogs. Pheromones don’t lie. To put it from a dog’s viewpoint, you are your smell. What could be more civilized than such complete openness with one another?
So Why Don’t Humans Sniff Butts?
In a 2012 Scientific American article, North Carolina State University biologist Rob Dunn made some thought-provoking observations. He suggested that our early four-legged ancestors saw and smelled “some version of what dogs see and smell, which is to say the rich and fetid world of odors around them, but also of each other“(emphasis added). However, humans evolved to be upright “which caused many problems for their and our backs, and made it much harder, in a casual interaction, to take a whiff of each others business.“
This got me to wondering what “casual interaction” would be like if we humans had somehow retained the keen olfactory senses from our four-legged days and had evolved with more limber backs? For one thing, it would greatly reduce our ability pass ourselves off as something we’re not. Just think what this could do for those folks trying to connect to others on dating apps such as Bumble. Rather than exchanging doctored up photos and lame biographical sketches to impress potential partners, there could be a simple exchange of little vials of one’s “information-packed pheromones.” It would be straightforward, require only a quick sniff, and help to avoid potentially awkward mismatches.
I have one last thought to share. I wonder how this hypothetical smell-based communication between humans would change the interpersonal dynamics in pick-up bars, or at cocktail parties for that matter. Now I’m going to leave you to mull over that mental picture; it’s time for me to take Wynn to the dog park .
In response to Ann’s Dog Poems, here’s another from Lawrence Ferlinghetti (and it was written in your neighborhood):
Dog
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn’t hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit’s Tower
and past Congressman Doyle
He’s afraid of Coit’s Tower
but he’s not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog’s life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master’s Voice
and looking
like a living question mark
into the
great gramaphone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything
Thank you “anonymous” for the Ferlinghetti poem. It is so clever and relevant in so many ways.