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cover of episode Why do dogs like to roll in stinky things?

Why do dogs like to roll in stinky things?

2025/1/27
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Moment of Um

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Cece the dog
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Elizabeth Carranza
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Elizabeth Carranza:我认为狗狗喜欢在臭东西里打滚可能是一种本能行为,它们这样做是为了掩盖自身的气味,从而更好地捕猎。狗狗是狼的后代,而狼是捕食性动物,狗狗也保留了部分捕食者的本能。如果它们身上有很浓的臭味,猎物就很难在它们靠近之前察觉到它们的存在。当然,我们人类的文化和社会观念中,臭味通常被认为是不好的,所以我们很难理解狗狗这种行为。但是,这并不意味着狗狗的这种行为是错误的或者是不好的。 我认为,如果狗狗在臭东西里打滚,主人应该尝试引导它们,而不是惩罚它们。我们可以尝试用零食或者玩具来转移它们的注意力,引导它们远离臭味。但是,我们不应该因为狗狗的这种行为而责备它们,因为这可能是它们的天性使然。 Cece the dog:作为一只狗,我非常喜欢在臭东西里打滚!我觉得这太棒了!我的鼻子非常灵敏,可以闻到极低浓度的物质。如果我身上有很浓的臭味,那只讨厌的松鼠就很难发现我,这样我就能更好地接近它,然后……嘿嘿!我知道我的主人不喜欢我身上有臭味,他们总是给我洗澡,让我闻起来像薰衣草和木瓜,这太糟糕了!我宁愿闻起来像垃圾桶里的腐烂物,那样才能更好地隐藏自己,然后……嘿嘿!

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From the brains behind Braids On, this is the Moment of Um. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Cece the dog. Let me paint you a picture. It's Tuesday. It's 82 degrees outside. The backyard is just begging for me to run around in it in circles. My human opens up the sliding door into the backyard, and I run free.

I've got a pile of leaves on my left, an abandoned fire pit to pee near, a big honkin' squirrel right above my head. Hey, Jerry! The stick I carried around for two hours straight yesterday. Hi, stick! And what's that? Is that juice dripping out of the garbage can?

stinky old juice? Oh, it smells awful. I love it. I think I can wedge my body right next to this garbage bin and just... Oh, yeah, baby. That muck is totally covering my formerly clean fur. I smell like straight-up garbage. This is the best day of my life.

My buddy Luke wanted to know why us dogs love rolling around in stinky stuff, so I found a human who knows a lot about it. Check this out. The big question is, what are they thinking? Why are they doing what they're doing? My name's Elizabeth Carranza. I work with the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona. I help run studies we are doing with the dogs.

They roll on the stinky thing because they enjoy it and it might be this instinctual thing they want to do to hide or hide from prey they maybe want to get. So as you know, dogs are descendants of wolves who are predators and dogs themselves are predator animals.

They do, some of them have this want or behavior to hunt other prey. And so if they're doing that, they don't want to be heard, seen or smelled. So the thing is, if you roll into something really stinky or smelly, your prey won't smell you before you're coming. They have amazing, amazing noses.

We have grown up and been sort of taught in culture or just society, like smelling bad is not a good thing. We have that a lot with our dogs. They do things that to us are either abnormal or gross. And so going to roll in something stinky also doesn't have a purpose for us, but also maybe have negative effects in our day-to-day lives if we were walking around smelling like we rolled in a dead fish, for example.

I think it's very much up to the owner, to the person. I don't think anybody really wants their dog smelling like a dead fish, but it's not a bad behavior in their eyes. And so I think if you couldn't have tried to avoid it, try. Maybe lead them away from the smell. If you have a treat with you as maybe you're walking around, try and distract them with that instead. But I don't think it's anything that they should be punished for.

Um, uh... Uh, thank you, Elizabeth. I love you, Elizabeth. You get me. And yeah, my doggy nose is a great and powerful tool. Did you know that my nose is so powerful that it can smell substances at concentrations of one part per trillion?

That means if you put a single drop of liquid in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, I'd be able to sniff it out. Aren't I amazing? And yet, and yet, my humans hate it when I'm stinky in any way. And they say, oh, Cece, that's gross. And then they give me a bath. The injustice. The horror. And then I end up smelling like

Lavender and papaya? Disgusting. I'd much rather smell like the putrid drippings of a garbage can because guess what? If I'm super stinky, that squirrel from before will never see me sneaking up on him. Which reminds me. Oh, Jerry. Come here, little guy. Jerry, come back. I just want to play. I promise.

If you liked this episode, take a second to subscribe to Moment of Ub wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to learn more about me, Cece, the dog, check out the Brains On podcast where we have a whole episode all about whether dogs know their dogs. Yeah, dogs. Want to see our shows come to life? Head to YouTube where we've got awesome animated Brains On episodes. Search Brains On Universe on YouTube and subscribe.

If you have a question, we'd love to help you answer it. Drop us a line by going to brainson.org slash contact. See you next time and the next day and every weekday. Until then. Get back here, Jerry. Jerry.