© copyright 01.May.2007 by Paul Bradley posted under Dogs.
You take Rascal out to the lake for a romp and a swim, and spend the afternoon playing Fetch! and other wonderful games. Then the last time you toss the stick he takes a little extra time ferreting it out before he comes trotting back up to you, head held high and tail wagging, very proud of himself. He does have the stick. The only problem is, he also stinks. Really stinks. He's ecstatic about having found the slimy remains of a rotting fish, as that is just the sort of thing he loves to roll in.
Why do dogs go out of their way to roll in everything from dead animals and the neighbour's garbage to swampy mud and even their own faeces? The truth is, no one can say for sure. But the most frequently quoted reason has to do with the canine's ancestry and his forebears' instincts for the hunt. Ethnologists - those are the zoologists who specialize in animal behaviour (ethnologists are sometimes called animal behaviourists) - posit that by rolling in things such as poop, Rascal is trying to mask his own doggie scent so that as he creeps up on tonight's dinner, it won't recognize him as a predator.
The main problem with this perfectly natural behaviour is that what smells yummy to Rascal often sends you reeling away to retch. No doubt he's confused and hurt when you refuse to pet him or let him into the house. Unless Rascal is a feral stray, the likelihood that he needs to stalk and kill his dinner is very, very slim. Kibble, for the most part, just sits quietly in the bowl waiting to be eaten. He doesn't, therefore, need to roll in kitchen scraps and bat guano to survive.
There's another theory about why Rascal seems compelled to cover himself with human - repelling smells. In this theory, Rascal's excitement has been likened to a sort of giddy ecstasy. Say you pull the handle on a slot machine and you get back ten times as many quarters as you put in. You'd be pretty happy, right? You'd smile, maybe want to show it off to your companion? Now imagine that when you pulled the handle, you won the top prize, millions of dollars: quarters keep pouring out into a huge pile and the lights flash and the horns blare. You might grab handfuls of quarters and throw them in the air, shout, do a little happy dance. That, say some ethnologists, is very much like what's going through Rascal's mind when he finds not just an interesting scent but a three-day old roadkill. He's won the doggie jackpot!
Rascal does not need to mask his scent, nor does he need to celebrate every time he finds something smelly. So how do you break him of the habit? First, you have to catch him in the act. If he goes off into the back yard out of your sight and comes back reeking of carrion, you can't reprimand him. He won't understand what he has done "wrong," because to him he has only done something instinctive. And you can keep him out of the house, but he won't understand that, either. If, however, you are nearby when he rolls in something, you have chance to train him to stop.
It's quite common for dogs to roll in poop - their own or that of another dog. One thing you can do immediately is pick up and dispose of his little piles right away. It won't teach him not to roll in it, but it will cut down on the numbers of chances he finds to do it. (Many dogs will eat faeces as well. While this isn't dangerous in and of itself, it can lead to parasitic infections. It will also give Rascal an extreme case of doggie breath for a while.)
What you need to do to discourage the behaviour is to associate it with something unpleasant. For example, if every time Rascal rolled in something smelly he got a squirt from a water pistol, he would soon make the connection and stop the rolling. There are also remote - control collars that will release a cloud of citronella. It's harmless to Rascal, but he will hate the smell. So as long as you are on hand to activate the collar, this can work as well. The advantage is that Rascal won't know where the scent is coming from, so it won't be you doing something to him directly. The disadvantage, of course, is that a plastic water pistol is a heck of a lot cheaper.
The best time to catch Rascal rolling will be while he's walking on a lead, as then you are within squirting distance and can keep him away from the offending substance. Alternatively, you might place a stinky dead thing in your own yard and set up a "blind" so Rascal doesn't know that it's you spraying the hose on him when he rolls in the pile of smelly garbage you've deviously placed nearby.
Otherwise, catching him in the act won't be easy. Dogs often sniff the ground and circle before urinating. If you hit him with a water spray or a blast of citronella and then find out that he was only intending to pee, you might really confuse him. He may think that urinating outdoors is what causes the unpleasant squirt/scent, and that is the last thing you want to do is untrain a house-trained dog!
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