We humans REALLY don’t like the smell of poop. Our own poop. Carnivore poop. Herbivore poop. Dog poop. Bird poop.
But there are plenty of animals who don’t have that reaction at all… dogs sniff it eagerly. Various creatures obviously eat or use it. Monkeys apparently like to throw it. Horses and cows just don’t seem to care (as far as I’ve observed).
Are there any other creatures whose reaction to it is basically the same as ours? Ie, “eeeeeew, I do NOT want to be near that smelly stuff”?
Why or why not?
Herbivore poop, in particular horse or cow manure, doesn’t really bother me at all, and it never has. I suppose if you have a big enough pile of it that would be pretty off putting, but I don’t agree with your basic premise.
There was a HUGE pile of it in the field over the road from me a few weeks ago. It didn’t bother me at all. To me, it’s just ‘the smell of the country’.
To answer the OP, cats seem to dislike it. They make the effort to bury it (although that may just be an instinctive reaction to covering their tracks) and won’t use a dirty litter tray.
Will they try to bury a different cat’s (or a different species’) poop? Will they actively avoid a used litter tray (as in, unpleasant to be around it) or just refuse to “use” it?
Some cats will bury the others’ poop. And I have heard it said (not a GQ answer) that in a multi-cat household, one may not bury their poop as often because they feel like the dominant cat.
They will also try to bury poop or pee even if it’s not in the box. A hallmark sign that the bath mat got pissed on is if it is disheveled in some way like someone pawed at it.
Yes. You can try not cleaning certain cats’ litter boxes for a few days, but don’t be surprised if they go somewhere else they’re not supposed to. Like on your clothes.
Keep in mind ADULT humans don’t like it, or at the very least, children at a certain age.
How many times do babies or toddlers walk around with full diapers/underpants or even play with their own feces? Its often until an adult steps in and “shames” the child and makes them think its a nasty substance that humans learn to wretch at it.
Many animals have a maturity/intelligence level well below that of a human child and that is why its not a big deal to many species.
Until a certain age, and in the absence of irritants caused by the shit–eg itching, too cold, gets in eyes–there is no reason that sitting in shit is a negative. It is a warm, moist physically (by material and touch) environment. A mud pack. No prob.
OP’s point about if the smell of shit is appreciable as a negative or positive is still worth considering, and I don’t know. I don’t believe it is built-in, as is smell of sourness as an instinct from the earliest days of infancy. I’m hedging with “earliest days” because the developmental sensory psychophysics of newborns is undoubtedly a complex field about which I know zip.
But the altricial [new word today!: Precociality and altriciality - Wikipedia] nature of many animals, cats and dogs among them–that is, they can neither feed themselves nor clean their own butts when newborn, and, more importantly, they bitch about being hungry but not about being be-shitted–suggests that it is a learned thing, in two senses: a physical one, to a lesser extent, and then a psychological one of being associated with the arrival of a parent.
In terms of cats & dogs, with dogs smell is everything. With cats its all sight & sound. A cat’s sense of smell is only slightly better than a human’s. A dog’s is literally a thousand times better. Scientists think that dogs probably ‘see’ scent trails, it is so dominant a sense. So a big steaming pile (or a bunghole) is simply a plethora of knowledge to a dog*!*
And although we tend to humanize these traits, cats keeping themselves clean is an evolutionary survival technique, just like burying their poop. Unlike dogs a lot of cat species are not the top predator so keeping their bodies clean reduces their chances of being tracked, caught and eaten. It also prevents their prey from smelling them when hunting. Dogs (wolves) rely on brute force and strength in numbers (i.e. pack hunting) rather than stealth like cats.
When my cat uses the litter box, he will poop, and then turn around and very carefully smell his work. Get right up in there. And only then does he bury it.