"As it happens, a team of animal behaviorists led by Jenny Ryon at Dalhousie University had explored this very question of canines' penchant for perfume in 1986. Their study wasn't with dogs—to the best of my knowledge, no controlled studies on scent-rubbing with domesticated dogs have ever been done—but with a very close relative instead: the wolf (Canis lupus). The authors note that scent-rubbing is an unconditioned response in wolves, which means that it's an instinct, more or less, and they submit that wolves have been observed to luxuriate among the pungent, nostril-pinching stews of everything from detached body parts to insect repellent to rotten fruit and cigar ashes. That's quite a wide array of stinky things, some of which did not exist through most of evolutionary history.
Ryon and her coauthors' objective, however, was to conduct a controlled test of the idea that wolves will grind up on unfamiliar, strong-smelling objects as a way to obtain chemosensory information about them. This is a relatively easy hypothesis to test, because if it's correct, then simple repeated exposure to the same stimulus should lead to a decrease in rubbing.
It's not clear how much of these wolf and hyena findings you can extrapolate to your own dog's behavior next time she rolls around in rotting duck gizzards or badger vomit."
- More Here
Ryon and her coauthors' objective, however, was to conduct a controlled test of the idea that wolves will grind up on unfamiliar, strong-smelling objects as a way to obtain chemosensory information about them. This is a relatively easy hypothesis to test, because if it's correct, then simple repeated exposure to the same stimulus should lead to a decrease in rubbing.
It's not clear how much of these wolf and hyena findings you can extrapolate to your own dog's behavior next time she rolls around in rotting duck gizzards or badger vomit."
- More Here
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