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Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works,

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Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. If

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you've ever had a dog, or walked a dog,

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or watched as many videos of dogs on the Internet

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as I have, you've probably witnessed

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one adorably infuriating canine

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behavior. Their ability to find

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the spot with the most decaying, stinky,

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vile, rotting awfulness and roll

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around right in it, coating themselves

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in the muck. But why

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spoiler alert? This is one of those questions

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that science does not have a direct answer

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to, but the theories are fascinating. Some

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researchers suspect it's a holdover from evolution.

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Perhaps dogs are trying to mask their

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own scent to hide from potential predators,

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even though they're generally unlikely to encounter

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any in our human environments. Another

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theory suggests that dogs, like wolves,

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roll because they smell something that to them

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is sweet. Wolves exhibit this

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behavior so that everyone else in the pack knows what

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it just found. A well will PLoP

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down in a decaying carcass, get all

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good and mucked up, and return as if to say, come

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on, guys, you're not going to believe what I found. Interestingly,

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Canadian researchers in six

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studied descent rubbing into groups

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of captive wolves. The researchers

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cooked up a range of different smells, somewhere

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from herbivores others from carnivores. The

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dogs could also smell food and some manufactured

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aromas, including perfume and motor

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oil. The researchers observed

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that the wolves liked the manufactured sense

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better than any of the others. A few

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liked the scent of cougar and bear feces, while

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only one wolf picked the salted pork. None

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liked the tuna oil. Other

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scientists suggest that center rolling, and yes

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that is the scientific term, is a defensive

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trait. The January

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seventeen issue of the Journal of Ethology,

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researchers at the University of Wisconsin at

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Madison wrote about how they observed some gray

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foxes with remote cameras in Santa

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Cruz, California. For four years.

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The cameras clicked on and off. They

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found that foxes rubbed their jowls

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on puma scrapes, a form of scent

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marking that the big cats used to communicate

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with other pumas. The upshot was

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that the foxes were perhaps covering themselves

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in puma scent in order to keep predators

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away. We spoke

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via email with Simon gadbois an expert

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in canid behavior and scent processing

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at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova

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Scotia. He said, there are

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many hypotheses out there, from environmental

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camouflage to seeking a group odor.

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Often all members of the family unit will roll

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in the scent too exploratory

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behavior. Yet at the end

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of the day, he added, no one really knows

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it could be and this is my pet theory. Pun

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retroactively intended that they're just

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having fun with a new and exciting scent

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experience like terrible perfume, which

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is a possibility. Ged Ba said,

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if you watch wolves, coyotes or dogs doing

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it, it seems pretty obvious to me that they

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love it. Try to stop them. Sometimes

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animals do things for no other reasons than

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it's fun. We just have to be open

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to that idea.

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Today's episode was written by John Partano

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and produced by Tyler Clang. Visit our

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online store at t public dot com slash

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supports us directly and of course,

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for more on this and lots of other dog On topics,

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visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot

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com