Yesterday, I took my dogs to the river. One of them apparently found a dead fish out of my sight and rolled around on it. I could see her rolling around but couldn’t see the fish, but when she finally came to me, I could certainly smell the fish. This also reminded me of another dog we used to have who would roll around on the leftover pieces of crawfish after we had eaten them.
So I’m guessing they’re doing this to get the scent on them (she certainly did that…) but why would dogs want to smell like dead fish/crawfish?
I asked my dogs this very question two mornings ago!
Our male dog Boris (neutered) steers clear of stinky stuff, but our Daphne (also speyed) rolls into whatever rank and malodorous gunk she can find…dead fishies, roadkill, stray yabbies, they’re all fabulous to her!! Luckily we go via a river on our morning walk, so after a roll in the funk, she’s off for a swim into the Murray River…repeatedly… until she doesn’t ‘whoof’ anymore.
Weird, ain’t it, the way some dogs will go out of their way to roll around in the most rank smelling stuff they can find and others avoid it like the plague.
By the way, it’s 4:06 am here in Houston, Texas, what time is it there in the ‘Great Down-under’ (and what part of it, are you in)?
Just the same, my female did it but I’ve never seen my male do it. It may just be that he’s never had the opportunity though. On this occasion, he was busy swimming, an activity the female doesn’t care for despite also being a lab.
Another reason they like to roll in stinky things is to carry the scent back to the pack. They can’t say ‘yummy carcass over here!’; but they can carry the smell to the pack and lead the pack to the food.
Thank God others are reporting this phenomenon! Mine used to do this with live worms or dead fish (which we would be feeding her). She would start by mashing her head on them - it looked like she was trying to get them in her ear! If anything, it looked like cats in the throes of catnip rapture. For what it’s worth, she did this after she was fixed (might have before, but had her fixed very young). She was very gentle in general, aggressive with birds & the occasional cat, but otherwise wouldn’t attack other animals or people. She was a mutt, German Sheperd, Beagle, Retriever & some others. When I’d ask her ‘Fluffy, why do you roll around’? She’d tilt her head to the side, as if she could understand and was debating telling me.
She lived for 15 years and even did this when she was too weak to walk down stairs by herself, & hadda be carried to the backyard - so obviously this is a strong instinct.
I’d love to hear some deep evolutionary goes-back-to-their-days-as-predatory-wolves-and-only-fish-or-worms-smell-like-wolf-blood explanation. Any veterinarians out there? Or doggie psychiatrists?
A while back I was walking my dog and he found where a construction worker had taken a dump in the woods. He went for it like it was a slip-n-slide! Worst smell ever, and cleaning up my pup was absolutely horrific. He had mushy human poop all over, even inside of his ears.
Can anyone definitively answer why dogs stick their heads out the window? Sure, because they pick up scents… but really, every dog?.. at 45 mph? It’s like there is some dog code they adhere to and don’t share the reason why!
Only my male dog does that often so it’s not every dog. But yeah, I figure it’s the unfamiliar scents, like a person looking out the window when they go to a new place.
I’m really not sure I buy this:
“What’s that terrible smell?”
“Dead fish?”
“But we’re miles from the stream!”
“Where’s it coming from then?”
“Must be that dog trying to sneak up on us.”
When you posted that it was 8.08pm (Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time) on Tuesday evening. Here now it’s 3.33pm (AEDST) on Wednesday arvo.
I live in a smallish rural town (pop: 5000) in the southern part of NSW where it borders Victoria, further to the south. It’s an agricultural area (look up RIVERINA via wiki) but there’s some minor industries in the region as well. Tourism (we’re on the Murray River) is big for boating, fishing and waterskiing and we’re adjacent to a popular wine-growing area as well, so weekend winery tours are v popular too. It’s pretty flat here, yet we’re barely 100km from some of the highest mountains in the continent, Mt(s) Buffalo, Bogong, Buller etc. We like to name our mountains starting with a B 'round here.
I could have so lived without knowing that story. Man, I feel terrible for you. Thankfully Gunner the Great Dane™ for all the trouble he seems to find hasn’t done that yet.
Many years ago my family organised a camping trip to the wild lands of north -eastern Victoria. My sister, BIL, the dog and I arrived first, quite late at night, but managed to pitch our tents and were just about to get a fire going when the BIL decided he needed to take a dump. Toting shovel and dunny-paper, he trotted off to the far reaches of the clearing.
He came back a few minutes later looking very satisfied with his evacuation.
Two minutes after that, our mongrel dog came out of the clearing looking even MORE satisfied…bounding around like she’d swallowed a dose of methamphetamine. And before we could restrain her, she’d sprung into MY tent, and onto MY sleeping bag to rub her humanly shitful odour upon MY bedding. It was a long night…washing the dog, trying to dry her in front of the campfire, and I had to sleep scrunched up in the backseat of the car with nothing to keep me warm.
That was 35 years ago now, and I haven’t forgiven my BIL for his crappy attempt to bury his shit. The dog is long dead.
