Do Canines Bury Their Poop? The three Surprising Causes Canines Kick After Pooping

You’ve most likely seen your canine kick their again legs after pooping.

Many pet dad and mom marvel if their canine is attempting to – with out success – bury their poop.

Generally, your canine would possibly really handle to fling some grass over it, however more often than not, the poop will nonetheless be out within the open.

Is your canine attempting to bury their poop, and in that case, why are they so horrible at it?

Why Canines Kick Up Grass After Pooping

Each Matilda and Cow go right into a kicking frenzy after pooping.

Simply this morning, Cow kicked straight into her poop, getting it between her toes on her hind paws. That is the third time she’s managed to do it. Normally I can get her to maneuver to the facet earlier than kicking. But when I’m not quick sufficient, I’ll find yourself having to scrub off her poopy toes earlier than letting her return inside.

Why would a canine attempt to get poop on her toes? Why wouldn’t she keep away from having to get her toes washed?

Now that we’ve got a cat, I can see simply how easy it’s for an animal to efficiently bury their waste. It’s not that onerous. Why are my canine so dangerous at this?

Whereas we are able to’t straight ask our canine why they do the issues they do, we are able to have a look at context clues like anatomy, behaviors of different animals, and situational variables to take a reasonably good guess at what could possibly be occurring.

Pooping for Scent Marking?

You most likely know that some canine, particularly males, raise their leg to pee on vertical objects as a technique to go away a territorial scent marking.

However do you know that poop, too, has its objective in serving to canine mark their territory?

Each time a canine poops, two glands situated on both facet of their anus empty, releasing a pungent, fishy-smelly oily fluid. You may be accustomed to anal gland fluid in case your canine ever releases that terrible odor once they’re nervous or excited.

Anal gland fluid is a scent marking that each one canine, each women and men, go away behind all over the place they go.

So it could make sense {that a} canine would need their poop to be observed, moderately than hidden. They need different canine to know “I used to be right here,” with their poopy, anal-gland-smelly signature.

Some animal conduct consultants theorize that kicking after pooping is a means for canine to assist unfold their scent additional.

Scent Glands in Paws?

Do canine sweat? Type of.

Canines have two sorts of sweat glands. They’ve apocrine glands, that are situated throughout their physique. Apocrine glands launch sweat into the follicle of the hair, maintaining your canine’s fur naturally moisturized and conditioned.

Merocrine sweat glands launch sweat straight onto the floor of the pores and skin. These are the sweat glands that we people depend on to assist us keep cool. Canines solely have the sort of sweat gland on their paws. So, canine solely visibly sweat from their pawpads. I haven’t seen this in motion, and a small inhabitants of canine really sweat profusely by way of their paws.

The principle objective of mercocrine glands in a canine’s paws could also be to go away extra scent markings.

So your canine would possibly kick after they poop to unfold their scent from the sweat glands of their paws.

Put up-Pooping Zoomies

Zoomies, or Frenetic Random Exercise Durations (FRAPs), is when canine “go loopy” and run round in circles. You’ve most likely seen this after you’ve given your canine a shower.

Frenetic exercise is often triggered by pent-up stress. Canines might run round once they’re lastly launched after a shower, and frantic to shake, rub, and run off all that water.

Pooping relieves stress, too, and will set off canine to go somewhat loopy afterwards. This could possibly be why canine go nuts with the kicking.

Kicking Round Different Canines

I discover that on a typical stroll, my canine might kick just a few instances after pooping, however that’s it.

When there are different canine round, particularly once we’re in a distinct setting like at a park, they kick much more.

To me, that is highly effective proof that canine kick as a result of they need different canine to note. It’s their means of claiming, “I used to be right here! I pooped!”

Lindsay Pevny lives to assist pet dad and mom make the perfect selections for his or her pets by offering actionable, science-based coaching and care ideas and insightful pet product opinions.

She additionally makes use of her pet copywriting business to verify the perfect pet services get discovered on-line by way of catchy copy and enjoyable, informative weblog posts. She additionally offers product description writing services for ecommerce firms.

As a canine mother to Matilda and Cow, she spends most of her days taking lengthy walks and working towards new tips, and most nights attempting to make the perfect of a really modest portion of her mattress.

You will additionally discover her baking bread and making selfmade pizza, laughing, portray and procuring.