The Sweet Smell of Success

Yesterday, Yoji and I went into an empty lot during our walk.  There was a damp area in the weeds.  Yoji sniffed it.

“Noooooooo!” I protested,running in classic battle film slow motion.

It was too late.  The Grand Schmear had begun.   

A Grand Schmear is not a regular roll.  A Grand Schmear starts with a look of ecstatic doggy “OH, YEEEEEAAAAAH!”.  The dog descends nose first, followed by simultaneous collapse of front legs and rubbing of the cheek.  Propulsion by the back feet insures maximum contact and pressure as the dog pushes neck, shoulders, ribs and flanks through whatever “oh yeah” is.  Heaven forbid there is no intervention- because it will be repeated on the other side.  Oh, yes, it is definitely a collapse, rub and repeat.

"OH, YEAH!" Another Grand Schmear incident.

Yoji rose from the poo mud (courtesy of a sewer leakage, of course) and gave a glamour slow motion shake, each poo mud droplet glistening in the sun. A sharp couple kicks of his back feet (sound effect: straight razor sharpened on a leather strap) and he was good to go.  He was Yoji-suave.  He surveyed his realm.  His message was clear:  “Wassup, bitches?” – not politically incorrect amongst dogs.

This wasn’t the first time.  The most memorable was The Crab Incident.  I was cleaning crab and Yoji was with me in the kitchen, hoping for a tasty morsel.  Taro and Rennie were in another part of the house.  I slipped Yoji a bit of crab fat. Mmmmm, tasty!  I handed him another bit and he held it carefully in his mouth.  What good is having special treatment if no one else knows about it?  He spit out the fat, got the glazed ecstatic look as I watched in growing horror.  SCHMEAR!!  Needless to say, the other dogs did NOT discover the secret snack as Mr. Yoji was hastily seized and taken to the bathroom for an unprecedented late night bath. Taro and Rennie’s looks were of condemnation, not envy.  

Big deal, so the dog ‘schmeared’, to which I say, only a schmeared dog owner understands.  A Grand Schmear only occurs when there is something spectacularly and unbelievably smelly, sticky, and rare.  Grand Schmear material includes, but is not limited to:  human feces, raccoon feces, horse feces, cow feces (seeing a theme here?), rotted to liquid unknown dead critter, dead fish, and dead earthworms (surprisingly stinky, sticky, and not as rare as one would like – and part of another theme).  In other words, pretty much anything wretch-worthy as the dog is dragged at arms-length to the nearest water source. Ironically, dogs also perform Grand Schmears on carpets and lawns right after getting out of the bath.  

I’m not exactly sure, but it strikes me that a Grand Schmear is a combination of dogs establishing bragging rights and creating a signature fragrance.  Dogs always seem happy and pleased with themselves post-schmear and they appear to make a point of approaching other dogs while schmear-scented.  For example, as a puppy, Camille schmeared herself with dead earthworms and dashed back and forth in front of Stanzi, her big “sister”, making no contact with her, but definitely wanting to be noticed for the discovery.  Stanzi ignored her, but after Camille left, Stanzi hurried to the dead earthworms in the same spot, and schmeared herself as well (it was a bumper bath day at the house).

It doesn’t seem like schmearing is a hunting/food oriented behavior.  Most of the time, the schmear is not edible – the quantity either being nominal or dispersed into the ground and I’ve not seen dogs eat the substance before or after schmearing in it, with the exception of The Crab Incident, but that was an unusual circumstance.  There is a food argument in that the stench could disguise the scent of a doggy predator as it stalks its prey – a thought that perhaps lingers in our dogs’ amygdala. But, to think that our modern-day dogs plan ahead, just in case, seems far-fetched, especially when I see their horrified expression as I put away leftovers (“What?  Let’s eat it NOW!!!  If it’s too much you can always throw it up later!”).  Sure, schmearing might be a vestigial behavior, like spinning before sleeping to flatten the grass, but dogs take so much joy in schmearing, there must be some intrinsic pleasure in it.

A couple things to note:  depending on the source, a dog has anywhere from thousands to millions more scent receptors than people.  That means scent plays an incredibly important role in a dog’s  life and perception of the world as well as identity.  Dogs also have marking glands on their cheeks and chin (as well as on other areas of their body),  leading me to the “signature scent” theory.  When dogs schmear, not only are they applying a fragrance, but they are also leaving their own.  It is both “Look what I found!” and “This is mine!”.  The combination of schmears, knowing what to schmear and what to ignore, gives a discerning dog that bit of je ne sais quoi.

Being on a 10 year search for a signature scent myself, I empathize with Yoji’s quest for a canine cologne with a certain savoir faire.

“Hm, top notes of rotted earthworm, warming to coyote scat and rotted possum gut.  But wait!  What is that finish?  It’s exquisite!  No!  It can’t be!  Can it?  Crab fat!  So inspirational! So memorable!  So YOJI!!”

At $2,000 for a professional nose to design a signature scent, I’m thinking, next spring, what that swath of freesias goes into bloom …. OH, YEEEEAAAAAH! 

Post-schmear bath depression