Animal Testing

Caught ya with that title, didn't I? You were probably expecting some thought-provoking, passionate argument about animal testing. Nope, not today. This is much less serious and much more fun! In the last week or so, I've been performing a little 'animal testing' on my dog, Myles.

During many of our appointments at the Behavior Clinic, Dr. Dodman spends a lot of time instructing owners as to how they can enrich the home environment for their dogs. Suggestions like food puzzles, music, leaving the TV on, and having a window for them to look out are common place. He also suggests olfactory stimulation, which can be very exciting for our furry friends who live in a world of smells we cannot even imagine. Owners are always intrigued when he gets to this part of the appointment. He tells them to take normally boring, neutral toys (such as rope bones and fake sheep skins) and add an interesting scent to them.

Now, what the heck kind of smell could I put on one of these things that my dog will like? Owners often have a quizzical look on their faces at this point. We all know dogs love to smell things we more squeamish humans deem 'disgusting'. Surely you don't want me to rub the scent of road kill on a rope bone for my dog? While they would certainly love that, Dodman suggests more human-tolerable options. Take a dab of vanilla extract, he says, or extract of anise, and rub it on a rope bone. Weird, huh? Through most of these appointments I'm sure I have the exact same puzzled expression on my face. No way dogs like the smell of vanilla. We humans usually think this smells fantastic, and things that we like to smell are generally things that dogs find aversive.

Curious one day after yet another appointment in which we discussed olfactory stimulation, I decided to test it out on my own dog (poor dogs belonging to vet students always get volunteered for poking and prodding in the name of education!). I took one of the one dollar rope toys we have from Target, took my vanilla extract, got a tiny dab of vanilla on my finger (remember, their sense of smell is SO much more powerful than ours, don't want to overwhelm them!), and rubbed it on the rope. I brought it over to him and held it out in front of his face. He sniffed. I put the rope down on his bed and walked away, waiting to see if he would do anything with it. I turn around a few minutes later and he's sniffing the rope intently. He picks it up, tosses it to himself, throws it around, and starts gnawing on the end of the rope. Wow, I'm thinking. He actually likes it. Who knew? Dr. Dodman, obviously. I would like to try anise, but as this is something that I think smells terrible, I don't have it hanging around my house. Other, more obvious suggestions for stinky stimulation include things like scent lures for hunting dogs. I did some internet searching for available scents, and found some things like 'waterfowl', 'pheasant', and some mammalian game. I'd be interested in trying these out on different dogs, and seeing which types of dogs prefer which types of scents. There are some we might easily predict, like Retrievers and waterfowl scents, or terriers and the scent of some rodent, but it would be fun to try out a bunch of different smells and see who prefers what.

I want to hear from you guys reading this too. Try a little experiment on your dog! Buy a couple rope bones for a dollar each at Target or Walmart (they may be that cheap at the pet stores too), get a couple different scents, and test your dog out to see which one he likes the best. Try weird things too! Get creative, and comment about it here. Dogs don't typically like smells we consider 'clean', like citrus scents, so just keep that in mind, though you can try it out to see for yourself!

Get creative and have fun with your dogs, in the name of science!

Here are a few things I came across online... next time I'm near a Bass Pro Shop I'm going to take a look around, but here are some ideas to get started!

A few bird scents
Who knew they made a squirrel extract?
Raccoon??
There are some crazy things out there...