Query: I’ve an intact male who’s 5 years outdated and we reside within the countryside so he largely walks off-leash. Once we exit for our first morning stroll, considered one of his first jobs is to discover a secluded place and relieve himself, however as quickly as he’s accomplished so he stretches out his physique along with his again legs, exuberantly gravels up the earth in lengthy channels scratching it up along with his claws as quickly as he finishes his job, he joins me and continues his stroll.
What’s he doing and why?
Reply: canines know that they’re quickly very weak once they’re eliminating, and are at a short lived drawback. It’s possible you’ll usually discover that they search for a spot to go in a bush or a tree so nobody can sneak up on them. As soon as the deed is finished nonetheless your canine has a second job to do and that’s the reason for the very energetic scrabbling. He’s distributing his scent as broadly as he can to let different canines know who he’s that he was there.
These very distinctive scents talk plenty of data to our canines and their odor will be as separate and identifiable between canines as fingerprints are in people. Scent is extraordinarily essential to canines. When your canine is spreading his scent, he kicks vigorously backward to make sure that he’s marked as broad of an space as potential. Not solely is he letting different canines know he’s been there, he’s additionally leaving as robust of an impression as potential and making an attempt to look as massive as they’ll with these scrabbles. After which they normally jog fortunately away with a glance on their face like, “Good job nicely accomplished!”
Bizarre reality: tree-dwelling monkeys can’t Scrabble in the identical method a canine does, however some species will disseminate their scent another way. The capuchin monkey urinates onto its palms and soles of his ft after which rubs it’s scent alongside branches because it climbs, leaving as robust of a sign within the timber as a canine leaves within the floor.
