Dog sniffs- processing info? What info?
I’ve always seen it said that when dogs are sniffing, they are processing information. Are they really though?? what kind of information?? like it’s not possible they’re leaving each other messages right? are they telling each other that “hey just fyi, I don’t like cats” or what possible information could they be learning from another dogs pee??
In: Biology
The way dogs smell things is not how we smell things. To us, a smell just means “the thing this smells like is near”. We don’t get a lot of subtlety for things that aren’t food. Dog pee just smells like pee to us. Hunters can train themselves to recognize different pee smells, but humans can’t say, “This pee was definitely my neighbor’s dog”.
Dogs get that subtlety with almost everything they smell. They aren’t just smelling “another dog peed here”, if they’ve met that dog they recognize WHO peed there. Or if they don’t recognize the dog, they know HOW MANY different dogs have peed there. To some degree they also get a sense of how long ago each dog peed there. That can build a story in their head that helps them understand which dogs visit which areas when and who might be the “bosses” in their pecking order.
They also get interested in poop. To humans, poop is mostly poop. Again, you can sort of distinguish different animal poops from each other, but we don’t get a lot of subtlety. Dogs aren’t just getting information about who pooped, but what they ate to make that poop. If other dogs are pooping out good food, that means there must be good food available somewhere in the area. If the poop has bad food or indicates an upset stomach, that means bad food or water must be in the area.
They’re getting that kind of information when they sniff other dogs too. “Who are you? What’s your mark smell like? What have you been eating? Is it any good? Are you healthy?”
So to make a metaphor, when a dog sniffs a pole or hydrant, it’s more like they’re looking at older location-based social media like Foursquare. “Who was here? When were they here?” When they’re sniffing poop, it’s like they’re searching a food tag on Instagram. “What’s everyone been eating?” When they sniff another dog, it’s like they’re having a quick chat about what they’ve been doing.
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