Sniffing has so many benefits for your dog
As owners we need to give our dogs time to sniff. Most of us know that five minutes spent training tires our dog as much as an hour’s physical exercise but we don’t always recognise that five minutes spent sniffing does the same. It’s not just their noses that are working, it’s a large part of their brains too. For active dogs, or for dogs who start their walks totally uncontrollable and either pulling on the lead in their excitement, or else whizzing around all over the place, time spent sniffing can take the edge off their unfocussed energy.
For worried reactive dogs, sniffing can help them feel more secure – as they have spent time working out what is out there and whether it needs to be worried about or whether, far more likely, it is safe.
Perhaps more importantly, for all dogs a chance to sniff fulfils a major part of their sensory needs – as much as physical and mental exercise does and as much as play does. Sniffing makes them happy and gives them an outlet for their hard-wired natural behaviours. So often we ignore this vital part of our dogs’ needs because we just don’t understand it.
So Why Do Dogs Sniff Human Crotches?
But what does that have to do with a dog’s need to sniff a human’s crotch? It all comes down to sweat glands, apocrine glands to be precise. These glands release pheromones that convey all different types of information such as age, sex, mood, and if a mammal is able to mate. Dogs have apocrine glands all over their bodies, but the highest concentration is found in the genitals and anus, hence why they sniff each other’s butts.
Intact male dogs are known for being especially avid sniffers when searching for a mate since they want to know if a female is ovulating or pregnant. Most mammals have apocrine glands, including humans. For humans, these glands are concentrated in the armpits and genitals. Since a dog can often only reach a human’s genitals, that’s where they head to gather information. Scent hounds, such as Bloodhounds, Basset Hounds, and Beagles are more likely to sniff at crotches due to a highly-tuned sense of smell.
If you’re a dog owner you’re probably familiar with the constant stopping so they can sniff and you’ll likely respond to this by nudging them along – but did you know that sniffing is really important for them? Your dog’s sense of smell is pretty much a super power and their daily sniff routine can help them identify what’s happening in their environment as well as lower their stress levels.
Getting out for a walk is one of life’s joys and it gives us a chance to experience all the sights and sounds of the great outdoors – whether on our regular walks or exploring new places. As we soak up these sensory experiences, we often forget that our dogs see the world very differently to us – and while we are looking at the sights, our dog is discovering far more about the area by its smells.
So often owners get irritated that while they want to stride off across the countryside or have an active walk around the park to make sure their dog gets their daily exercise, their dog pretty much ignores them while he puts his nose down and ‘just’ sniffs.
It’s easy to drag them away thinking they are wasting precious exercise time but that’s purely because we do not have anything even close to a dogs sense of smell, and we don’t understand just how fabulous our dog’s nose is – or that this incredible ability means that unlike us, they see the world in smell-o-vision.
While they are sniffing, they are finding out about the area, who lives there, who has passed by recently, and even what kind of mood they are in. All the time they are sniffing, they are processing information about the environment and who and what is in it.