While over 90 percent of dog urine is plain water, the rest consists of water-soluble organic matter, such as creatine, fatty acids, uric acid, enzymes, carbohydrates, hormones and other corrosive chemicals like ammonia and chloride. This plays an important factor in why dogs roll in pee.
When a dog tastes urine, it can detect the hormones in it via its overly sensitive vomeronasal organ near the roof of its mouth to distinguish what dog that urine came from. This will influence the dog’s brain because of the perception of pheromones. Consequently, the dog’s behavior will change. A dog’s sense of smell is quite an amazing thing!
Undoubtedly, you’ve watched dogs urinate to mark their territory. This undoubtedly indicates that urine signals which dog is master of that territory and other dogs will be able to determine much about that dog by the way the urine tastes and smells. Else, they’d be no point in using pee to mark territory.
How strong a urine smell there is may indicate how recently the mark was left. How varied a urine smell there is may indicate how many other dogs there may be in the vicinity vying for the same territory. In short, there is much information encoded in dog pee, even whether a female dog is in heat and ready to mate.
But Why Do Dogs Roll In Pee After Smelling It?
Dogs roll in pee for the same reason they roll in feces, which is also used to mark territory. They’re instinctively trying to communicate. Odors are a means of conveying information in the animal kingdom and the dog that permeates itself with a particular urine odor is conveying a particular message.
What message this may convey specifically is still in debate. Taking on the scent of another has its benefits in the wild. A dog may be attempting to cloak itself in the smell of the predominant dog. When it rolls in its own urine, a dog may be attempting to spread out its mark. When it rolls in the feces of another animal, it may be masking itself to become less detectable especially by a potential prey.
According to Jolanta Benal, a professionally certified dog trainer and behavior counselor belonging to the Association of Professional Dog Trainers and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, “Nobody has any answers! I eagerly await a study, any study, of scent rolling by domestic dogs. Which leads me to say something I try to pound (gently) into all my clients’ heads: The experts, the real experts, the ones who spend their lives taking notes on dog behavior and making up nifty experiments to test dogs’ cognitive abilities, don’t know much for sure.”
Some Dog Pee and Poo Habits Are Hard to Decipher
Some dog behaviors still baffle us. For instance, no one knows yet why dogs seem to prefer to poo aligning their bodies toward the north and south poles! For in fact, an exhaustive study published by Frontiers in Zoology observed 37 different dog breeds for more than two years go poo nearly 2,000 times and urinate more than 5,500 times. And the researchers discovered that the 70 dogs under analysis seemed completely to avoid doing their “business” along the oriental-to-occidental axis. Nobody knows why.
What won’t be baffling is your dog rolling in pee outdoors and soon collecting flies. So, be sure to wash your pooch in some fragrant shampoo. No matter how much they seem to love that acrid urine smell, that’s one perfume no human seems to prefer rolling in the house with.