If you’ve been following Cali’s progress, you might have seen that Catherine was puzzling over something Cali was doing.
Catherine gives Cali chews and toys when she’s at work and she’d noticed that Cali often lies down and rolls all over her chew, especially hard chews, such as her nylabone. She pushes her shoulder into the chew and rolls on it.
What an odd behaviour. No wonder Catherine’s puzzled by it.
As well as working for us here at Down Dog, Catherine also works as a groomer at Cloud K9 in Newtownards. The owner, Amanda, has her dogs there too, and of course there are client’s dogs that come in and out during the day.
Which probably explains why Cali does this odd behaviour.
When dogs roll on things they’re adding their scent to the item as well as taking its scent up on themselves. This provides a huge neon beacon of scent that says to other dogs “This is mine. Keep off”.
You might see your own dog performing this scenting manoeuvre on items around your home. You won’t mistake it – your dog will lean down onto the object/area and push his shoulder along or across it. He’ll usually repeat the action several times. Gus regularly does it on my kitchen rug and on his bedding but only occasionally on his toys.
It’s the same type of movement your dog does when rolling in fox poo, when they’re trying to pick up that disgusting scent.
Gus did that too, very thoroughly, one weekend when we were walking in the field behind our house…I wasn’t impressed.
Dogs will only do it on things they see as precious or important to them when they want to send a message to other beings. So, Catherine, Cali is rolling on her chew to leave a message for the other dogs in the shop that the nylabone is hers.
It’s as simple as that.
Keep training,
Carol