Why does my dog roll around after smelling something?
Jamel VonRueden
2025-06-30 20:35:03
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Many believe it's instinctual behavior, harkening back to the days when your dog’s wild ancestors would mask their scent to help them sneak up on their prey. Wolves, for example, have been observed rolling in animal carcasses or the droppings of plant-eating animals, to cover up their own smell during the hunt. Here’s a related theory that also conjures up the pre-domesticated past of canines: wild dogs may have rolled around in smelly things to “tell” their pack mates where they’ve been and what they’ve encountered in their adventures. It’s his way of saying, “Hey, smell where I’ve been!” As a result, as soon as your just-bathed dog gets the chance, he finds something that smells more acceptable to him—garbage, dog feces, animal carcasses—and starts rolling around in it. Have you ever caught your dog rolling around in poop, this behavior is quite common—and very natural.
Daisy Yost
2025-06-21 21:01:58
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Dogs can be quite territorial. Their noses are 10,000-100,000 times more sensitive than humans. The substances they’re rolling around in are likely to be packed with scents and pheromones. This will communicate important information to other dogs in the area. Your dog might be trying to claim a particular spot as their own or asserting their dominance.
It’s easy to look at todays’ domesticated dogs and forget that they descended from wild animals. Their DNA will be hardwired with ancient behaviours that go back hundreds of years. Pat Goodmann, a researcher at Wolf Park in Indiana, says her research suggests that wolves display this behaviour to alert the rest of the pack to what they’ve discovered.
Rolling around in something strong-smelling will have helped to mask their own scent. In turn, this would have made it easier to track down and hunt prey. Some dogs may simply be rolling around in stinky stuff in order to get some attention.
Carley Kutch
2025-06-13 16:23:18
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Dogs delight in rolling in the most repulsive stuff such as deer droppings, cat excrement, raccoon poop, spilled oil, a dead squirrel in the road and similar decaying debris. In other words, it’s not just poop that they like to roll in…it seems that anything nasty or rotten will do. A dog’s sniffer has many more olfactory receptors than a human nose but it doesn’t mean he has better judgment of what smells good. What smells wonderful to him might be obnoxious to us but, by the same token, our favorite lotion or perfume might send him running for the hills. Why do they do this? No one really knows. There is no hard scientific evidence, only theories. Behaviorists believe that your dog’s wild ancestors used this tactic to mask their scent to help them sneak up on prey. Plus bringing the scent home to the pack could indicate a food source worth pursuing. Rolling around in smelly things is a natural, normal thing for a dog, and no matter how much you dislike it, it should not be punished.
Michele Kuphal
2025-06-13 15:45:33
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It's in the genes! And quite natural for canines to roll around in smelly things it's what our ancestors used to do to mask their smell when hunting for prey, or to disguise their smell from predators. A clever researcher at Wolf Park in Indiana Pat Goodman has studied scent rolling in wolves and she thinks it's a way of bringing information back to the pack about their environment, particularly if the wolves have been rolling in a decaying carcass. Rolling in something smelly could also mean that predators were put off the natural scent of the wolves and couldn't smell where they were hiding. But for domesticated pooches, like me, it could be that it's just good fun. There may have been an evolutionary reason for it, and although we now may not do it for the same reason, it still feels good!
Velda Spinka
2025-06-13 14:39:53
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Probably the most popular theory is that dogs—like their wolf ancestors—roll around in a strong scent like a dead animal to mask their own scent. This helps them sneak up on their prey more easily. They could be acting out some of the ingrained instincts they’ve received from their ancestors with no intention of seeking out prey. Sometimes dogs are attracted to scents that people find gross. Scent is their strongest sense, and the more intense the smell of something, the more they like it. Your dog may just be rolling around on a dead animal, garbage, or poop because they are excited about this very strong smell. They also do it by rubbing against or on things—like a dead animal. Once they’ve left their scent on something, it signals to other dogs this is their property or territory. Another theory is that they want other dogs to smell the scent on them to show off that they have found prey.
Wilson Schoen
2025-06-13 13:42:33
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One of the most widely known theories is that dogs do this to cover their own scent, hiding from prey or other predators. Her research suggests that wolves roll in scents they find particularly interesting, not to disguise themselves, but to bring that information back to the pack. Rolling in a decaying carcass, or even fresher meat, could be a way for wolves to tell members of the pack, “look what I found.” There could also be a social aspect of scent rolling. A pack of wolves may all roll in the same scent, according to canid behavior expert Simon Gadbois, perhaps to create a sense of togetherness or group smell. Veterinarians and behaviorists are not entirely sure why dogs roll in smelly things, but they do have a few ideas.
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