In this episode of the Muttz with Mannerz Canine Training Academy podcast, host Corey McCusker dives into the fascinating world of a dog’s sense of smell and its role in their behavior.
In this episode, you’ll learn
- Why do dogs sniff each other’s butts and what this behaviour communicates.
- How a dog’s incredible nose helps them navigate and understand their world.
- Corey shares tips on supporting your dog’s natural instincts through sniffing activities, managing interactions during greetings, and exploring the power of scent detection in everyday life.
Whether you’re a new dog owner or an experienced pup parent, this episode is packed with insights to help you bond with your dog and enrich their life.
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Hello dog lovers, welcome to Mutts with Mannerz Canine Training Academy podcast, where we’ll share valuable dog training tips and insights to help you raise a happy and confident pup, no matter what their age or what stage they’re in. Our mission is to ensure your dog becomes a beloved member of your family and a positive presence in your community. At Mutts, we create programs that enrich lives for both ends of the leash because it’s not just about training your dog, it’s about having fun, learning together and building a strong lasting bond with your canine companion.
I’m your host, Kori McCusker, Canine Coach. Today, we’re diving into a question many dog owners have wondered about, but might be too shy to ask. Why do dogs sniff each other’s butts and private parts? It may seem odd or even a bit embarrassing to us humans, but for dogs, it’s a completely natural and crucial form of communication.
To truly understand why, we need to explore just how powerful a dog’s sense of smell is and how it shapes their world. Have you ever had that slightly awkward moment when your dog runs up to another dog to greet them and immediately goes for a sniff of their rear end? Many owners try to stop that, and I’d like to educate you today why you might not want to do that next time. My own dog, Skye, loves to greet her friends this way and learn about new friends she meets.
(1:31 – 4:36)
At our enrichment daycare, when a new dog enters a pack, Skye and her buddies rush up to gather information just through scent. So let’s explore more about the dog’s nose. So how good is a dog’s nose? Well, it’s astonishingly powerful.
Dogs have a sense of smell around 100,000 times more sensitive than ours. While humans have about 5 million scent receptors, dogs typically have 150 million. Big difference.
Bloodhounds known for their extraordinary noses can have up to 300 million receptors. Their brains are wired for scent, dedicating roughly 30% of their brain power to processing smells, compared to our mere 5%. In practical terms, what this means is, while we might smell a freshly baked apple pie as one delicious aroma, a dog can detect each individual ingredient, the flour, eggs, butter, apples, and cinnamon.
Now that’s cool. Dogs also have a special organ called Jacobson’s organ, located in their nasal cavity. This organ allows them to detect chemicals and pheromones we humans can’t perceive.
Through scent, they can learn about another dog’s mood, health, and even if they’re a friend or foe, all from one single sniff. So when dogs do sniff each other’s private parts, what they’re accessing is unique scent markers produced by the anal glands. These markers convey a wealth of information, whether the dogs have met before, if the dog is male or female, their social status, and even their current emotional state.
For dogs, sniffing their butt is like shaking hands. It’s a way to greet and get to know each other. There’s actually a social structure to the sniffing ritual.
So more assertive dogs might come up and take the lead in sniffing, while more submissive ones may hang back or they may move away sooner. Sometimes a dog may even sit down to hide their scent, essentially choosing to limit the information they share. And so it may appear awkward to us, but for dogs, this behavior is natural and informative.
I often, when I’m running puppy classes and the dogs come in at first, some of the dogs may want to come and sniff the other dog’s butts, and you would see that assertive and submissive stuff, because one might be like, oh, okay, hi, and right in it, and both of them are kind of doing a circle. And then the others might be, you know, just moving away, trying to avoid it. And I really explain to owners that when they are sniffing each other’s rear, they’re simply trying to shake hands, or maybe not, and they may just be moving away.
(4:36 – 6:56)
And in addition to gathering crucial information, this ritual can also relieve stress and create a calm atmosphere between dogs. It’s their way of setting the tone for future interactions or cementing bonds with their buddies. When dogs greet each other, think of it as a chat through their noses.
So if you are preventing your dog from exploring through scent, so they want to explore the world through scent, it would be like to us putting a blindfold over our eyes and limiting our sight. On walks, give your dogs safari moments, times when they can lead with their nose, explore and soak in the world. You can make it a game by teaching cues like go sniff at certain spots, or let’s go when it’s time to move on.
I once heard someone describe dog sniffing fire hydrants and trees is like receiving p-mail. So that’s a reference to like our email, where it’s full of information, and I thought that was really cute. With our daycare dogs, we actually know the importance of them using their nose and sniffing.
And we let the dogs have their little outdoor sniffing breaks to enhance their experience and have their own little sniffari, as we call it. I also take Sky, my dog, who is a Manitoba Mutt and a big hunter, I take her to the forest often, where she loves to explore and get those hunting scents. And she’s always on a long leash.
And in just 20 minutes of this nose work, it will tire her out because it’s mentally and physically engaging because she’s working her nose the whole time trying to figure out where the rabbits, where the squirrels, what’s that smell, who is here. And it’s like I’ve done a five kilometre run in just 20 minutes. And just the other day, as we started our forest walk, she caught a scent, her nose went to the ground, she was sniffing here and there, and I was thinking, oh, has she got a scent of a rabbit or a squirrel? Maybe she picked up that.
(6:57 – 7:35)
But when that happens, she’s usually vibrating and just wants to go. This wasn’t the same. She was more curious and excited.
She was looking ahead. And then I saw ahead of us, because I couldn’t see around a corner. And then all of a sudden, somebody came out around the corner.
And I saw approaching at a distance, it was a pet parent who we knew and their dog. And I went, ah, I get it. It was one of Skye’s friends who had been walking before us.
And Skye had figured that out just by sniffing his scent on the ground where he had been. And when we met up with them, they did their excited little handshakes. And then we moved on to explore.
(7:36 – 9:22)
So I really love seeing the nose in action and how it can pick up things. If you were to come to our training academy and observe the dogs entering the building, you would see them enter and they would start sniffing the floor immediately, the moment they walk through the first initial doors. And I know they’re gathering data about who’s been there, who they’re about to meet, or they’re figuring out if their friends are inside, ready to play and learn.
So they can do all of that just by putting their nose to the ground. I do want to mention though that butt sniffing isn’t always a perfect interaction. It can cause discomfort or overexcitement at times.
Think about a male dog greeting a female dog who may be in heat. Look out. As responsible dog owners, we really need to be aware of reading our dog signals, our dogs, and also the dogs that we are meeting and greeting.
So if you see your dog’s getting too pushy, or maybe your dog isn’t liking the interaction and maybe shying away or sitting down, then what I would do is gently break up that greeting by either encouraging your dog to walk away or have a cue, one cue that we use a lot for telling dogs to just get away, don’t touch, don’t bother, is the leave it cue. And so if you did have an interaction where you didn’t see it was comfortable, then I would say move on. When we look at humans, so if we take a look at us, first impressions with us often involve handshakes, eye contact, voice tone, gestures.
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So imagine if we could learn as much about another person with just one sniff. Now don’t go up and try this as it doesn’t work that way for us. It is fascinating and a little overwhelming to consider, but for dogs it’s second nature.
So the next time you see dogs exchanging nosy greetings, remember it’s not mere curiosity, which it kind of is, but they’re exchanging messages that we can’t comprehend. So take a moment to just marvel in that and just know that their world is shaped by scent. The power of a dog’s sense of smell is extraordinary.
In fact, dogs are used in medical fields to detect diseases like cancer because their noses can sense changes in a person’s body’s chemistry that even advanced medical machines struggle to detect. Did you know that in ancient times certain cultures recognized dogs’ abilities to sniff out sickness or changes in human behavior? While they didn’t understand the science behind it, the observations that they were seeing laid the groundwork for today’s scent detection dogs, and it started way back in ancient times. I know with us we do sniffing games, nose work, and those are really fantastic enrichment activities to do with your dogs.
So hiding treats, using snuffle mats, encourages dogs to hunt for rewards, and it really does keep them entertained and mentally stimulated while channeling their instincts. And that’s why we incorporate scent games into our enrichment daycare program. As well, we offer introduction to nose work and scent detection classes because we know these activities tap into their natural instincts, which is so important.
So instead of just doing a walk, making sure that you learn about the power of their nose and how you can incorporate some different activities to really tap into those natural instincts. So this brings our podcast to a close. I hope I have provided you with some information that makes you understand more about butt sniffing and why it happens and how they shake hands.
And I want to thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Butt Sniffing 101. We uncovered why dogs do what they do and the amazing way they experience the world through scent. If you are interested in more information on Mutts with Mannerz or to hear other podcast episodes, please visit our website muttswithmannerz.com and we will provide that information in the show notes.
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If you have a topic that you would like me to have on a future podcast, please email us at info at muttswithmannerz.com. And don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share this podcast if you found it interesting. Thanks for tuning in and have a pawesome day.
If you’re interested in hearing a topic that we may not have covered on our podcast, or you have questions, please reach out to us at info@muttzwithmannerz.com. Our goal is to enrich the lives of both ends of the leash. And today we’ve provided you with some tips on how to do that. Karen, thank you so much for joining me. And again, thanks listeners. Everyone have a great day.