I was doing a lot of poop mining this week. An arctic blast of uncommon ferocity swept down upon Tulsa, Oklahoma and dumped about six inches of frozen ice and snow on us, entombing a variety of poopsicles and complicating the thrice daily chore of poop scooping.
It put me in mind of many things - other dog trainers hire specialist poop scooping companies to do their most common and basic task. I do not, because of a few reasons: it is a good idea to be highly aware of how every dog in my care is feeling (poop is hands down the best indicator of health and stress) and more than that, it keeps me humble.
Often, though, owners have a great many problems with dogs and poop.
This lies in a fundamental difference in the sensory experiences of dogs and humans. Humans are highly visual creatures, followed by our auditory prowess (which is indeed pathetic compared to, say, elephants) and very lastly do we engage our sniffers. If a human's olfactory area is the size of a postage stamp, a dog's is the entire legal sized envelope.
What this means is that to dogs, stink is art. Where we paint our world in form and color, their paint theirs in scent gland marking (that adorable cheek rub they do? They are marking you with scent. Feet scraping? Scent marking. Rubbing adorably on the comforter? You guessed it!) urine, and feces.
Dogs gather a world of information from their olfactory shenanigans,both present and past. Not ony can they tell that their friend walked this way, but they can tell if their friend was excited, or sad, or approaching sexual readiness.
We poor humans are blind to the orchestra of stink that dogs appreciate.
However, what this means is that we are always somewhat in conflict with dogs because of this sensory difference. A good friend of mine in dogs told me tonight that she (sensibly and practically) wasn't getting another male because she couldn't stand their urge to urine mark versus a female's more subtle efforts.
Perhaps living on a farm has driven me a little crazy, but I have come to see that dogs' propensity for spreading stink as a sort of species inevitability. This doesn't mean that marking can't be trained against - oh no, any deeply ingrained instinctive behavior can absoloutely be addressed through rigorous obedience.
But let's admit it - you're facing an uphill battle. It's as if you're expecting a human to walk through an art museum and not look at any of the pictures.
To me, I file this under one of those things that I address contextually. Dogs are absolutely not allowed to urine or feces mark in my house - but I know they're scent marking with their various other spots like their cheeks and feet and violet glands. One of Yasna's favorite things to do is wrap her glorious curly pouf around my hand - marking it with the violet gland on her tail.
I am so aware of this process that I have observed rival dogs marking a shared human over and over again in a sort of stink war.
So next time your dog is lovingly rubbing against you, note that they are indeed painting you with beautiful perfume (in their estimation), and incorporate this knowledge into your training regimen.
And perhaps, as I do, use sensible management to keep your male dog from peeing unobserved on the azaleas, unless you wish to camp outside continually and obsessively destroying his artwork and correcting him from attempts to redo it.
Ultimately, loving dogs is a stinky situation because of the nature of the beast.
Becoming aware of it - and changing your environment to suit - is an essentialstep to living harmoniously with such an intensely scent driven mammal as they are.
Comments