Your paw-friend has some amazing superpowers you did not know much about. They are very intelligent in their own way, especially when it comes to using their sense of smell.
Their senses are remarkable, and among those senses, the best-known sense of dogs is the olfactory sense or the sense of smell.
Here are some interesting facts:
- An average dog has a sense of smell that is 100,000 times more sensitive than a human nose.
- A dog has 150 million olfactory receptors, while a human nose has only 5 million receptors.
- A dog’s 1/3 of their brain mass is occupied in detection and identification of odours, while humans use only 5% for olfactory purposes.
Dogs have a special organ called Jacobson’s organ in the nasal cavity. This organ is used for chemical communication and helps your dog communicate through his sense of smell. Moreover, it is directly attached to the brain and has organ tissues that are different from that of the olfactory organ’s.
This organ helps in detecting things that have even no smell. It helps in finding a mate by identifying pheromones for the mating season as it informs the dog about the presence of a sexually active partner.
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A Way of Communication
Unlike humans who use speech, facial expression, body or gestures to communicate, dogs do not do all that to communicate with other dogs. They emit information through the odour in their body and receive the information through the same process (in addition to body language and sounds).
They get to know a lot about each other through sniffing. Whether the other dog is aggressive, happy, sad, afraid, anxious or if the other dog is their friend or foe. They can also determine the sex of the other dog and know can even know the health of the other dog.
Their smelling sense can help them remember things for a very long time. The amines and acids released by dogs are used by the olfactory senses as the means of chemical communication. Dogs can get a general idea about the other dog with just a sniff, but to get the detailed information they have to get close to each other. Hence, dogs sniff butts.
Two dogs sniff each other’s butt for an anatomical reason. There are two small sacs inside the rectum which are known as anal glands that release a very unpleasant smelling entity into the rectum. These glands are emptied when the rectal sphincter muscles squeeze during bowel. Every dog releases a unique smell. Thus, dogs identify each other easily with the help of this secretion and can even recognize if they have met each other before. The identity of a dog somehow depends on it.
Sniffing butts can also tell a lot about establishing a relationship. Such as who among the two dogs is the dominant one and who will be submissive.
To know this, see who initiates the sniffing first. The one who initiates sniffing is likely to be dominant and potentially be the leader of the pack.
Conclusion
There are many reasons for your dogs to be sniffing butt, which helps the it in many ways. Not only is your dog able to communicate, but it can also calm itself down through butt-sniffing. This habit soothes the dog and serves as a stress buster too. So, the next time your dogs sniff butts, just let them do it! 😉
