It may seem very personal but that sniff is like dogs shaking hands, saying: “Hi, how are you. My name is Rover.” But why sniff butt? Why?
A dog’s nose is much more sensitive than ours, to the tune of between 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive. Greetings are how dogs communicate and its involve smelling each others’ butts and inguinal area, offering very important information, such as, another dog’s diet, gender and emotional state. So, when your dog is smelling another dog, we need to allow them to do their thing. Not allowing them this necessary and informative behavioral ritual is robbing them of their instinctive and habitual nature.
This can be one reason that dogs become reactive or aggressive when meeting other dogs on leash. Laurie Luck of Smart Dog University offers some great advice about dog greetings that will go a long way to keeping your dog safe while you’re learning to be a better dog body language reader.
That explains much and if your children ever ask you the dreaded question: “Why is that dog sniffing the other’s butt?” you can, with confidence tell them the above.
To learn more and see some great graphs and pictures on the subject, go to Dogster.
Now, we have to wonder, when a dog sees us shake hands with another human being, does he thing we are gross? Probably not. They are intelligent creatures, after all!
