The Land Down Under

Dear Sophie, 

Why do you like smelling strangers' butts?  I don't mind butts and the other stuff but don't want to smell those of stranger's.  Explain please.

Love,
Down Under

Dear Down Under,

My, the questions have sure taken a turn southerly this week. Why does everyone think dogs have intimate knowledge of the human nether regions? However, I will try to answer as best I can. Dr Roger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwTL_zOQAG8) offers the simplest explanation on YouTube; dogs have two scent glands in their butt that tell us everything we need to know about other dogs, like their sex, what they've eaten, even their health. My mommies have read that our noses are so finely tuned, we've been known to sniff out cancer in our human friends. We can even smell the fear of the dog who was in the exam room before us at the vet's, which makes us nervous about what. has. happened. in. there.

Even if sniffing butts is like Facebook in the dog world, but it doesn't explain why we continue to sniff the girl and boy parts of the dogs we know really well. I have heard that our memories and categorization systems are less advanced than humans'; if humans have folders in their computer brains, we only have desktop minds. So, even though I knew cat brother Boo an hour ago, sometimes an hour later I forget about what the heck my relationship with him unless I smell him (Cat. Boo. Brother). According to Kevin Behan, sniffing each other's junk is a way of grounding ourselves. Like the smell of your mom's apple pie, or your favorite cologne. By the way, we hate the smell of that dog shampoo. Really. Why can't it smell like bug guts, chicken bones, and dirt?

What was I talking about? Oh, right - bottoms and stuff. Seriously, they smell better than you realize; you just have really weakling human noses that can barely tell a pinot from a shiraz. Imagine being in the biggest patisserie in the world. Oh, the smells! That is what a dog's behind smells like, seriously. Some have really good tarts, and others croissants. The Newfoundland at the park smells like a hazelnut macaroon, I am not kidding.

S O P H I E