Carnivory III

While I installed the overhead run in the backyard, Dexter explored the high grass and creek.

... and when I finished, and called him, he came back eagerly muddy, as a young boy should be. I don't mind a little mud on my dog. However, the Amazing Scent Cloud that came with him...



Immediately prior to this Dexter had apparently just enjoyed his second meal of found carrion (#1 = field mouse), after which he apparently rolled in the yummy, odorlicious leftovers. Don't know what he found, but it's dead, Jim.

Curiously, he's meticulous about cleaning up after meals, rubbing off the meat scent and perfuming his muzzle with clover & creeping charlie. It's our after-meal ritual: I swab down the eating area, clean the bowl (it's raw meat, after all), and then we (1) go outside for a quick pee & after-dinner hygiene.

1. The "we" in these actions is a bit one-sided, of course. I generally don't floss immediately after meals, for instance. Maybe my dog has a point...

Apparently to a predator: fresh meat scent = bad b.o.; rotten decayed corpse scent = good bodywash.

But it makes a certain sense when you think about it... The scene of a fresh kill is no place for a herbivore to be. However, the scent of a rotten corpse does not equate to current violence, and probably smells far less frightening than natural predator body scent.