On the Prowl
The smell of love
by Bernadette Calonego
Which smell reminds you the most of life on the Great Northern Peninsula? I threw this question to some of the people I know. This is what they told me: The smell in the spring when everything starts to thaw and you can smell the marshes thawing. Wood smoke on a frosty morning with no wind. Snowmobiles in the winter and the smell of fish in the summer. The smell of homemade bread. Or grandmother`s Sunday dinner. The smell of blackberry bushes in the summer. The smell of the woods. Cooked dinner on a Sunday morning. The smell of bogs. The smell of firewood burning. Fishy smell, beachy smell.
The smell that was mentioned by most people was the smell of the ocean, of the salt water and of wood smoke. Or a mix of it all. One friend said: “The smell of fresh clean air – I guess it`s the absence of smell really and the clean fresh feeling it gives.” Another friend told me something similar: “I think it is the smell of cleanliness. Having the clean air.” Then she told me that when she went to the United States with her dogs, one of them would always cough and wheeze on their walks. The car fumes would really get to him. So for her the smell of the Northern Peninsula was “the smell of NO SMELLS….clean, fresh, COLD air!”
Smells can trigger all kinds of strong emotions in humans, memories from childhood for instance. We associated smells with people and locations. Smells can become impregnated on our brains. They evoke pleasant and not so pleasant experiences. Not coincidentally we say: I cannot smell that person.
But the human sense of smell is nothing compared to dogs and cats. A dog`s sense of smell is 44 times more sensitive than ours. And he can get hundreds of different information from what he smells. A dog can smell even incredibly faint odors. His nose is his eyes, really. It is more sensitive than any scientific device. Dogs can sniff out land mines and they can detect cancer and other illnesses in people.
In order to be happy, dogs absolutely need to smell lots of stuff. It is a basic need. That is one of the reasons why dogs need to go on walks with you. Along the way, there are all these interesting smells, from other dogs, other animals, from humans, vehicles, food, machines, plants – it is dog heaven. It is a way for them to check on their world out there, to feel stimulated and safe at the same time. If a dog is not walked, you deprive him of a basic, fundamental and health preserving necessity.
A cat`s nose is equally so much better than ours. Like a dog, a cat can sniff another cat`s scent and learn its sex, status, sexual availability and the age. For a cat, it is very important that there is a “family scent” in your house. The family includes you and other cats in the household. That is why a cat rubs its body against your legs. It is like saying: “You belong to me and you are family for me.” For this reason, cats also scent-mark furniture or doors or other locations by rubbing themselves against it.
If you buy a new sofa, put a blanket that smells of your cat on it, so the cat does not have to scratch in order to leave its scent (there are scent glands between their front paws). An unfamiliar smell in the house is unsettling for a cat.
Usually the cat uses facial rubbing, because there are scent glands around its mouth, chin, forehead and lips. In that way they are rubbing their scent into whatever they are rubbing against.
If you bring in something new into your house, like a new carpet, you can gently rub a cloth around the cat`s mouth and then rub the new object with it. Without pushing the issue, be simply aware that smells or scents are extremely important to your pets. If your pet does not like the litter box for instance, the litter might contain a problematic perfume. As we humans sometimes cannot not stand another person`s strong perfume, cats might just hate a strong smelling cleaning detergent in the house. There is a lot of useful information about pets and scents on the internet or in your library. It is worth reading it.
In this moment, your dog might just sniff you and learn that you are relaxed and content. Yeah, my pack is doing okay! And your cat had been greeting you at the door and rubbing herself against you: Yeah, my family is here again!
In the end, we are all part of the same tribe.
(Published in the Northern Pen January 20, 2014 )
Photo Amiee Foss
