16/10/2024
Such a good read…
WHEN THE FLAIR FOR ODOUR BECOMES A CAUSE FOR CONCERN
We simply can't imagine how it is to live in a world where odour is our dominant sense.
One of the most enlightening experiences I've ever had in working with dogs was spending three weekends with a French truffle hunter and her malinois as she led us through the science of canine olfaction.
In her Périgordin orchard, we sat in September sunshine learning all about the science of scent. Our teacher took us through the way weather influences odour, the way scent moves and plumes, how it coagulates in some places and passes lightly through others, the effect of heat, of wind, of rain, of snow.
She talked us through the way terrain influences the behaviour of scent, pulling it in and holding on to it in pockets, misleading the avid follower of their nose.
And we talked about odour particulates in themselves, the stability of odour and its behaviour.
As best we could, we tried to immerse ourselves in a landscape where odour ruled, where it dominated perception, where vision became confirmation only.
Interesting as it was, I had no real inclination to find truffles or other fungi as she did, using her dog to help her find the best cèpes and other mushrooms where un-dogged foragers relied on their humanity - their knowledge and their eyes.
What I was interested in was how scent predicts. I was interested in how dogs make sense of odours, how some odours seem to fit neatly into behaviour patterns, how easily a poodle takes to the odour of a duck, for example, why so many pointers and Britanny spaniels struggled with cats compared to the larger French scenthounds. I was interested in knowing what our scent says about us and the stories it tells to our dogs - not least where we've been and what we've been doing.
I know I'm not the only one to have trousers that tattle on me when I've been with other animals, to come home to a nasal interrogation by my dogs who'd rather spend five minutes inhaling molecules from my trousers than saying hello.
So when does this become a problem?
For me, in that prediction. What does the odour predict? What emotions and behaviour patterns does it trigger? What effect does it have on our dog?
We know so very little about this aspect of our dogs' lives, particularly when it comes to the pheromones they receive from other animals.
It matters when those odours dictate what our dog does, locking them into behaviour patterns that toss them about like flotsam on life's tides. It matters when it puts the dog in conflict with the world around them.
I remember a little terrier returned to the shelter after a brief period in a home. Much as they had fallen in love, the terrier had caused some issues with the neighbours. They were pressing for euthanasia.
And what had the terrier done?
The odour of next door's rabbits was so potent that he couldn't stand it. If chained up, he would howl and bark all day. If fenced, he would frantically dig and dig until he got under the fence. If kept in the house, he howled. It had got to the point where he wouldn't eat or sleep.
Next door's rabbits caused mayhem and stopped the dog doing anything other than trying to get to them. And one day, he had.
He returned to the shelter exhausted. He'd lost weight. He sank into the basket in his kennel and went straight to sleep. We simply couldn't imagine how hard he'd been to live with, either.
It was only when I was fostering a dog who was tormented by the odour of foster kittens coming from the utility room that I realised what the family had been up against. My poor foster was driven to distraction. He failed to habituate to the odours, never getting used to them. Instead, he simply got more and more sensitive. He'd spend hours pawing and barking at the door, finding it impossible to pull himself away and go to get a drink even, or rest properly.
It can also set us up in battle with our dogs from the moment we open the door.
This is a feeling I know well.
Inside the house, things are fine. Things are ordinary. No problem at all.
But outside?
It's a different story altogether.
The lady with the malinois suggested we teach dogs to focus outside. She captured and rewarded focus outside when it happened, gradually getting more and more of it so that her dog didn't simply ignore her in the truffle hunt.
I tried this with a dog from the shelter who was driven mad by the odour of all the wildlife that lived in the forest surrounding us.
I waited almost an hour for him to even look at me, his frustration growing and growing and growing. He whined. He barked. He howled. He bayed. He tried running into the lead. And he eventually gave up. Not once did he even orient back to me. I might as well have been a concrete pillar holding him in place for all the value I had.
I could see how this approach would work with young dogs that you're training from puppyhood. I could see how it would work with my boy Heston (though it still took him 47 minutes to check in with me simply in the garden).
What I couldn't see was how this approach could work with dogs whose attention is so tethered to the odour that they will persist in behaviours to get closer for hours and hours after end. I often use the example of my dog Lidy here. We'd both spotted a rat disappear into the barn under a pile of kindling. I thought, since I'd seen the rat come out of the other end of a drainage pipe into a secure part of the garden, that I'd let Lidy fill her boots. Have at it. Investigate as much as you like.
After six hours, I quit and called her away. She'd not stopped for a drink in six hours of active hunting. She'd not rested. She'd not eaten. We'd gone four hours past dinner time.
Didn't I face the consequences that night?! She sat by the door, staring out. She's too polite to vocalise, but her intentions were clear. When I let her out for a pre-bed p*e, she ran straight back to the kindling to search for that long-disappeared rat. She didn't p*e. She didn't come back when I called. In the end, in my slippers, with a torch, I had to go out and clip a lead on her and physically manoever her away. She wouldn't go for a p*e, even though I walked her around the garden. She'd still not eaten. I had to call her into the bedroom, and for the first time in our life, I had to close the bedroom door just to keep her away from the front door where Heston liked to sleep. That focus on finding the rat interferred with both her relationship with Heston and her relationship with me.
It can sometimes cause aggression that we rarely think about - where another individual stops or blocks our ability to carry out a behaviour, or we suspect they might. I knew better than to try putting the lead on Lidy again to physically remove her. I certainly knew better than to try to pull her away with a collar grab. Many of my clients haven't been so lucky and didn't get the memo that some dogs really don't like to be interrupted once an odour or motion has triggered a behaviour system that cannot be completed. Bites are not unusual in this instance.
Sure, we can think of it as "resource guarding" an odour. What's probably more true is that they are irritated and frustrated by having a behaviour interrupted, especially when they have been unable to complete the action that the behaviour is a part of.
It's not just a problem for a dog who can't focus on us in public, whose body is so tuned into the frequency set by the odour that they are totally tuned out from us. It's also a problem if the action cannot be completed and this causes frustration for the dog, like not being able to kill a rabbit that lives next door, or catch and dispatch a rat, or mate with next door's in-season labrador.
Are there things we can do in these cases?
Ah, you know me so well! Of course! Stick around for the follow-up and find out!
