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dogs behaving like dogs: my pooch likes used masks
should i be worried about my dog sticking his snout into other people's masks?
mugsy, a good boy.
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my dog mugsy has a habit of sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. as vigilant as i try to be, sometimes i take my eye off the fur ball while checking my phone or looking through a shop window, only to look down and see him muzzle-deep in something nasty. and on the well-worn streets of toronto, there are plenty of options.
dog poop, underwear, dead animals and rotting garbage are common. but the covid-19 pandemic has brought on a new stinky delight for doggos: masks. face masks have been lining the streets for the last year, and whether or not you have a 85 lb pup like i do, it is not always easy to keep them away from them.
so that had us wondering: beyond the gross factor, is there a covid risk to owners when dogs plunge their snouts into used masks?
a penchant for putrid
a dog’s penchant for the putrid begins with the incredible power of their noses. scientists say a dog’s sense of smell is between 10,000 and 100,000 times as acute as a human’s.
“let’s suppose they’re just 10,000 times better,” james walker, former director of the sensory research institute at florida state university, told pbs. “if you make the analogy to vision, what you and i can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well.”
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put another way, while a human might smell a rotten apple in a bunch, a dog can sniff out that apple in two million barrels.
that incredible sense of smell has been harnessed in the medical community to sniff out cancer and diabetes, and is used to help fight crime. especially important these days are the canines who have been trained to detect covid-19.
so why do our dogs get a kick out of sniffing gross things, or worse, rolling in them? as dr. patty khuly told the miami herald, the habit has to do with a dog’s inclination to stay mysterious to prey and predator. sniffing and covering themselves in smelly substances masks their scent so they can hunt for food without attracting the attention of competitors. it also offers protection from predators by throwing them off their scent.
plus, a dog’s world is guided by its nose. it’s how they gather information about the world around them. a dog can pick up another pooch’s emotional state, gender and reproductive status just by sniffing a spot they peed on. they get the same types of information about humans when sniffing us, so that would explain an attraction to things like underwear and masks that reek with human scents.
but in these days of a deadly pandemic, can your dog’s love of mask sniffing put you at risk?
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dr. dana varble, chief veterinary officer of the north american veterinary community, told npr that even if viral particles did get onto your dog’s pelt or body, it would be difficult to contract the disease through surface-level, or physical, transmission. essentially, you would have to touch the dog, pick up the particles from the fur and bring them to your eyes, nose or mouth. think hand sanitizer.
as for risk to your furry friend, preliminary research also demonstrates that dogs are resistant to infection, varble added.
if you need to handle a discarded mask, it’s best to use a disposable poop bag or disposable gloves to avoid direct contact. and keeping your dog on a leash or on paths with less trash, especially in busy urban areas where mask littering is rampant, is an effective way to control what your dog gets into.
as for mugsy, he seems more interested in discarded pizza crusts than masks most of the time. so i’ll count myself lucky while packing a couple extra bags just in case.
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