2 dogs return home from vacation and immediately scent mark the living room in different ways

by MikeB · January 18, 2022

This video of two dogs returning from holiday reminds me of feline behaviour. It seems that canine behaviour can, at times, be very similar to feline behaviour. My guess is that both these dogs decided to scent mark the living room to make it more friendly and to re-establish their territory. They had been away for a while and therefore they felt that it needed to be re-marked with their scent as if to say, “I am home and I want to make a statement that this is my home and also I want to make it smell more friendly because it’s lost some of my smell over the vacation”.

Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

The dog in the foreground uses scent glands in his cheeks and around his head. He rubs his cheeks and throat against the wood floor. The dog in the background uses scent glands on his body as you can see him rolling around belly up; two very different techniques but with the same objective. The dog on the front is marking the hardwood floor and the dog in the background is marking the sofa. Combined they do a good job of making the statement that they desire.

And what is interesting is they immediately set about this task. My guess is that they picked up the fact that over the intervening two weeks of vacation, or whatever it was, the living area had lost the smell of their body odour. They noticed it immediately and they wanted to put it back to the way it was. The living room had become a slightly strange place to them. Visually, they knew that it was their home but it no longer smelt like it so they instinctively rectified the problem.