In fact, many people feel uncomfortable when they see their dogs chasing other dogs’ butts and sniffing them, and may even feel a little dirty. But we must understand that this behavior is very important in the daily life of dogs. It’s not fun for them to do this. The answer to this question may be more complicated than we think!

1. Receptors in the dog’s nose area

To answer this question, we must first understand the well-developed olfactory system of dogs. We all know that dogs’ sense of smell is very sensitive—about 10,000 to 100,000 times that of humans. Dogs have as many as 300 million olfactory sensors, while we humans only have 6 million, so dogs can distinguish many smells that we cannot, and they can also get a lot of useful information from these smells.

Dogs have such a sensitive sense of smell, which is not only used to find food. After all, today’s pet dogs don’t worry about running out of food at all. Among working dogs, there is a special category of sniffer dogs. They can sniff out illegal drugs from a pile of luggage and rotting corpses in the wilderness!

2. Nose pick in the oral area

In addition to an astonishing number of olfactory sensors, dogs also have an auxiliary olfactory sense - the snout/Jacobson organ. This organ is located near the vomer and nasal bones and is the mammalian organ involved in the cleft lip olfactory response. The snout contains sensory neurons that detect chemical stimuli and function by capturing pheromones.

3. Pheromones in the ‘Kikube’ area

Humans communicate using language and words, while animals communicate using pheromones. Almost all animals have proven the existence of pheromones. The dog's anal sacs contain glands that secrete chemicals. According to research from the American Chemical Society, dogs can learn a variety of information about the other person’s gender, emotional state, dietary status, etc. by sniffing each other’s anus.

Comparing this behavior with human society, the chemical pheromones secreted by the anus are equivalent to ID cards, and the olfactory system is equivalent to a scanner or card reader. Therefore, the most important purpose of dogs sniffing butts is to confirm the other party’s information.

From the above content, we can know that in the animal kingdom, smelling butt is a typical example of chemical information exchange. Capturing pheromones from each other is actually a process of self-introduction. Dogs can learn about each other's gender, eating and other related conditions by sniffing this part. In addition, cats’ behavior of “burying feces” is also related to pheromones. Big cats will deliberately expose their excrement to mark their territory, while smaller cats will hide their information by "burying their excrement".

So we don’t have to be rightDogs are dissatisfied with this behavior because it is a necessary way for dogs to socialize. Only after dogs obtain more information can they be able to contact each other with more confidence, and dogs can better integrate into them. Of course, other dogs will also learn about our dogs in this way and decide whether to play together.