On her daily walks, my dog spends what I consider an inordinate amount of time smelling around as we slowly circle the block. Normally I don’t mind but if the weather is bad or I’m in a hurry it can be a battle to get her moving consistently. I assume she is smelling urine and other odors left behind by neighborhood cats, rabbits, racoons, chipmunks, and other dogs. I assume she is fairly familiar with the smells from these types of animals.
I was wondering how she would react if she smelled a truly unknown animal, like a bear or bison or something like that. For example, if she somehow came upon the smell of a tiger, would she understand the danger involved? Could she somehow infer the size of such an animal simply from its urine or other scent it left behind? Could she determine this was a predatory animal and that, if something like this was close by, quickly getting to a safe place would probably be a good idea? Or would she (maybe?) mistake it as something close to a housecat and look around to see if she could give chase?
I’d think it would be possible to set up a study in which tiger scent was applied on dogs’ usual routes and their reactions recorded. While that wouldn’t tell us what they’re thinking exactly, it should be possible to tell whether any of them reacted differently than to the scent of a strange domestic cat, for instance by trying to get away from there – though you’d need to account for the fact that the dog could almost certainly tell how fresh the scent was.
My googling doesn’t seem up to finding such a study, if anybody’s done one; though I did trip across the fact that dogs can identify specific tigers by the scent they leave, so as to help in wildlife studies.
Experiences with my own dogs when encountering new scents, including exotic (to them, at least) beasts suggest that great interest and not fear predominates. How would they know that bear scat or tiger urine poses a threat?
On our own property and elsewhere in the area Pluto has probably come across scent trails left by coyotes and otters, both of which could be dangerous to him. From his reactions I gather that it’s like reading a good mystery novel or finding a new friend online.*
*a mailbox or hydrant are like Facebook for canines.
I’d bet that a dog can tell whether the scat / urine was left by a carnivore or a herbivore. And many animals have an instinctive fear of snakes, for instance, so even if they wouldn’t know, they possibly could.
But as you note, dogs don’t take a carnivore as a threat by default, and size isnt readily apparent from the droppings. And herbivores can be dangerous, as well, especially to a lone dog.
