Can Fido figure you out?
So, can dogs tell when youre on your period? Isnt it that when Auntie Flo comes visiting, you just feel as if your beloved pup is especially on the alert. How often is it that, whenever you have your period and a friend comes along with her furbaby, the former just seems to zero in on you to sniff out your nether regions.
Perhaps youre wondering if it has to do with your heavy flow. Or maybe, you have a leak and its gone past the “safety zone” of your pad or tampon and onto your undies. Whatever the reason, you feel like dogs just know.
According to Dr. Kate Mornement, a PhD-qualified Applied Animal Behaviourist and Consultant, “Dogs are scent-driven creatures” and “experience their world predominantly through their sense of smell. So when a woman is on her period, she probably just smells different, which is interesting to the dog.”
And it isnt just the blood that dogs can smell a mile away. During our period, we also release pheromones, chemicals that attract the opposite sex. We dont intentionally do this, of course. Our feminine makeup is biologically wired to make us attractive for possible mating, which is, of course, what ovulation preps us for. These feminine odors are what canines can detect.
Their sense of smell is so sophisticated that dogs find employment as drug busters, bed bug detectors, and even as competent allies in forensic investigations. The reason for this is that dogs noses are equipped with—get this—300 million special receptors. In addition, a portion of their brains is dedicated to processing scents, which makes their sense of smell 40 times more powerful than ours.
So, yes, dogs know when were having our red-letter days. However, they dont know that what they smell is called menstruation. All they can figure out is that you smell differently and deserve some special inspection.
Signs Your Dog Senses Your Hormones
You might not have known it before, but lots of animals are able to detect when your hormones are changing or balancing out – and that includes your pup. Your dog, with his or her keen sense of smell, is able to detect menstruation and other changes by both odor and hormonal levels.
Sure, your dog probably doesnt fully understand what those things mean, but they do know that something different is going on than usual.
Your dog will probably let you know they can detect a difference by giving you a pretty obsessive dose of sniffing and licking. Thats right, you can expect your dog to get all up in your business – speaking of which, you can probably expect that your dog will get up close and personal with some of your hormonal zones, so keep a lookout for doggo snouts trying nose into places they dont belong.
Your dog also might try to give you extra comfort and love – they might nuzzle up with you, give you kisses, or just try to be closer to you than normal because theyre detecting a physiological and hormonal shift.
Here are a few signs your dog might be giving you to signal that he or she knows youre dealing with some hormonal shifts:
Your dog might be behaving in these ways as well:
Are male dogs attracted to female owners?
Whether or not dogs are more attracted to one gender can’t be objectively answered because all dogs and people are different. But, dogs generally tend to be more attracted to a specific set of behaviors that are exhibited mostly by adult women. It’s not that dogs are exclusively attracted to female adults.
Ask The Vet, (Dogs getting their period.) Dr Yalda Motavali
It turns out that both cats and dogs are able to detect menstruation by odor and hormonal levels. Of course, they don’t actually have any scientific concept of what’s happening in your uterus, but they do know that something is going on.