Scents during its daily walk
You will notice that, during your daily walks, your dog will use its nose a lot. When it sniffs at street corners, poles, and bushes, appearing to be extremely interested in these scents – it is really interested. Your dog has an excellent sense of smell and what it smells during these outings constitutes an excellent source of information. One of the things your dog smells is the urine traces of other dogs. From these, it can distinguish whether the sender is high or low in rank and whether there is a bitch in season.
Has a new dog come to live in the neighborhood or has one just left? The presence of a new scent or the absence of a familiar scent marker will tell your dogs these things. Males do this more than bitches. They plant their scent markers at set places and dominant males also cover other dogs’ scents with their own urine. Feces have the same sort of function. The anal gland gives off a unique odor which is added to the feces heap.
Because scents are an important part of the communication between dogs, it is not very kind of you to forbid your dog to set out a scent marker or to have a good sniff at certain places from time to time. So as you discover how to train a puppy, just as we read the newspaper, so a dog sniffs up information. During puppy training tips sessions, however, its attention must be fully devoted to you and, when you have given a command, the dog must never let itself be distracted.
Sometimes you have to forbid a male from putting out a scent marker. Not everyone appreciates their garden fence or conifer being the “talking point” for all the dogs in the neighborhood.