This is the part that spooks me about having a dog. You’re out a lot, and your buddy really likes stinky things. So far I’ve found no human corpses, but I did once remove a dead bird from my dogs mouth.
You see a lot of stuff though. Most jarring was the time a man absolutely covered in blood approached me like it was nothing. My dog was like “yay! New friend” and I was like “yay, let’s not react in case the man covered in blood is violent.”
He was! But he was also very nice and warned me about it, and I never experienced it. He had epilepsy and had suffered an attack while out, got banged up pretty bad. Apparently it’s decently common for some people to get confused and belligerent after an episode.
Wow. That’s quite the encounter. Mine is sort of scared of new people, but absolutely loves smelly things. Thankfully once I pulled a live mouse out of her mouth and it ran away. Another time I couldn’t get there in time…that mouse didn’t make it.
But she’s picked up bones, fish skeletons, cigarette butts, who knows what else. She really likes rolling/rubbing herself in the “smelly” parts in parks.
Oh I have a story to build off that dogs LOVE stinky things.
When I was in college I worked summers on my Uncles septic truck. We used to pump out in a really rich area. So we are at this really nice house and these 2 beautiful golden retrievers come bounding out of the house to say “hi” w/ the home owner.
These dogs were pampered, they smelled amazing, perfect coats, so lovable. So we got the hose in the tank I’m horsing around w/ the pups while my uncle is talking to the home owner.
Now we had a rule on the truck. We use the same hose to go in the hole. All the others link to the truck, best practice to keep them “clean”.
I start dragging the hoses back, “clean” hoses first and the last is the poop hose. One trick to clean to tank side of the hose (a short hose) was to roll it as you drag it back to “clean” the poop end off on the grass. No one ever noticed until today.
As I dragged it back those two goldens made a bee line to the path the hose was being dragged and went right on their backs rubbing in all the nasties into their fur. Home owner was horrified, his beauties were covering themselves in the black water of their septic tank.
My uncle said it happens all the time. And needless to say that homeowner never brought his dog out in our other visits.
tl;dr Dogs will rub themselves in septic nasties when you put the hoses back after a pump out.
All dogs seem to love human shit, either they roll in it, or eat it - or both (the worst experience for the owner). I theoretize, while they were evolving into dogs, wolves might have eaten human shit for easy sustenance, hanging near them, that could explain the keen interest in it specifically. I think it is also very likely, the village dogs in places like parts of India, where the sanitary conditions are bad, might be sustaining themselves somewhat on human shit. Thoughts nobody wants to read, but now have!
I did a rotation in an ER while in education and I had a patient that was in because he was having grand mal (tonic clonic) seizures. He was extremely confused and at one point ripped out his IVs because he was completely incoherent and not listening to the nurses telling him to leave them alone
This is the part that spooks me about having a dog. You’re out a lot, and your buddy really likes stinky things. So far I’ve found no human corpses, but I did once remove a dead bird from my dogs mouth.
You see a lot of stuff though. Most jarring was the time a man absolutely covered in blood approached me like it was nothing. My dog was like “yay! New friend” and I was like “yay, let’s not react in case the man covered in blood is violent.”
He was! But he was also very nice and warned me about it, and I never experienced it. He had epilepsy and had suffered an attack while out, got banged up pretty bad. Apparently it’s decently common for some people to get confused and belligerent after an episode.
Wow. That’s quite the encounter. Mine is sort of scared of new people, but absolutely loves smelly things. Thankfully once I pulled a live mouse out of her mouth and it ran away. Another time I couldn’t get there in time…that mouse didn’t make it.
But she’s picked up bones, fish skeletons, cigarette butts, who knows what else. She really likes rolling/rubbing herself in the “smelly” parts in parks.
Oh I have a story to build off that dogs LOVE stinky things.
When I was in college I worked summers on my Uncles septic truck. We used to pump out in a really rich area. So we are at this really nice house and these 2 beautiful golden retrievers come bounding out of the house to say “hi” w/ the home owner.
These dogs were pampered, they smelled amazing, perfect coats, so lovable. So we got the hose in the tank I’m horsing around w/ the pups while my uncle is talking to the home owner.
Now we had a rule on the truck. We use the same hose to go in the hole. All the others link to the truck, best practice to keep them “clean”.
I start dragging the hoses back, “clean” hoses first and the last is the poop hose. One trick to clean to tank side of the hose (a short hose) was to roll it as you drag it back to “clean” the poop end off on the grass. No one ever noticed until today.
As I dragged it back those two goldens made a bee line to the path the hose was being dragged and went right on their backs rubbing in all the nasties into their fur. Home owner was horrified, his beauties were covering themselves in the black water of their septic tank.
My uncle said it happens all the time. And needless to say that homeowner never brought his dog out in our other visits.
tl;dr Dogs will rub themselves in septic nasties when you put the hoses back after a pump out.
All dogs seem to love human shit, either they roll in it, or eat it - or both (the worst experience for the owner). I theoretize, while they were evolving into dogs, wolves might have eaten human shit for easy sustenance, hanging near them, that could explain the keen interest in it specifically. I think it is also very likely, the village dogs in places like parts of India, where the sanitary conditions are bad, might be sustaining themselves somewhat on human shit. Thoughts nobody wants to read, but now have!
It makes sense, consider how close human and canine have lived to close together for how many thousands of years.
Yeah, depending on the type of seizure…
I did a rotation in an ER while in education and I had a patient that was in because he was having grand mal (tonic clonic) seizures. He was extremely confused and at one point ripped out his IVs because he was completely incoherent and not listening to the nurses telling him to leave them alone