Olfaction, the sense of smell, is the most acute of the wolf's and dog's senses. Wolves and dogs, unlike humans, are strongly reliant on odors to aquire information about the outside world...about food or danger, and to communicate with other wolves.
Unlike vocal signals, that indicate state of an individual's changing mood and possible future actions over the next few seconds or minutes, the odor provide a deeper and broader window into the animal's history, present status, and future prospects over much longer time frame.
For example, while a female's urine may inform a male that she is psychiologically ready to mate and concieve, her voice may inform him that now is not the time.
Odors contain information on species or individual identity, gender, breeding condition, social status, emotional state, age, condition and even a diet.
Skin Glands
The secretions of the wolf's or dog's skin glands not only keep the skin supple and hydrated, but also function in chemical communication. There are three types of secretory skin glands.
a) Sebaceous Glands
Found in hair follicles. They produce an oily, waxy substance, which when acted on by bacteria, emits distinct odor. In dogs, large sebaceous glands are found along the part of the neck, back and tail, especially in the tail gland area. However, those present at the junction of the skin and mucous membranes of the lips, vulva, and eyelids are even larger. If you live with more than one dog, you may often notice, that your dog's sniff, or sometimes even licking, each others at the above mentioned areas. Commonly, you will see this behaviour from the most dominant dog within your family pack.
b) Apocrine Sweat Glands
Found in the skin of dogs. They are most numerous on the face, lips, and back and between the toes. Apocrine glands become active at puberty. Their watery secretion is not used for cooling.
c) Eccrine Glands
They are the true sweat glands that function primarily for cooling. In dogs they are located only on the footpads. Their secretion is influenced by excercise or heat stress, but can be also stimulated by the nervous system. Individual differences in microflora and in diet result in the functional equivalent of "chemical fingerprints". Thus, wolves can recognize one another by distinctive " odor fingerprints", dogs can not only identify individual humans by odor, but can distinguish between identical twins that are eating different diets.
Feet
Appocrine sweat glands are present in the "webs" of the paws, in the form of small glandural pockets near the bases of the toes of dogs. Eccrine sweat glands, are numerous in the footpads. The offten seen stiff- legged scratching of the ground after a defecation, and in some individuals after or before urine marking, lay down an aditional scent mark from the paws. This behaviour is presented by dominant male dogs, or by the alpha breeding pair of wolves. So next time you see your dog doing so, it means he's laying down additional scent mark, and not cleaning his feet, as many people believe.
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| Marking with back feet |
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| Paws sweat glands |
Back and Tail
Little attention has been paid to the skin on the backs of canids in terms of signal value. Wolves, for example, have contrasting colour marking across the shoulders, and the relatively longer guard hairs covering that area are raised during periods of arousal. Also called "hackles", these raised hairs convey an obvious visual signal that can be seen also in domestic dogs, and can be recognized even by humans. The passive release of scent from the raised hair, during which the skin folds spread, might also play important role in communication.
Clusters of sebaceous glands, together with apocrine galnds, make up a dorsal tail gland found on the top surface of the tail near to its base. Wolves nor dogs don't typically investigate this area on one another, some might rubb the secretion on their dens, kennels or crates.
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| Raised hackles |
Ears
Male dogs show little interest in the ear wax samples of other males, but investigate the ears of females. These results suggest, that the information in the ear wax samples is related to gender. Many times, you will also find dogs showing interest in smelling human ears.
To be continued.....
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