McClanahan Kari, Rosell Frank
Department of Natural Sciences and Environmental Health, Faculty of Technology, Natural Sciences and Maritime Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bø in Telemark, Norway.
Sci Rep. 2020 Oct 20;10(1):17837. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-74784-5.
Carnivores rely heavily on scent to communicate with conspecifics. Scent glands located on the underside of the feet provide an especially efficient way of leaving a scent trail. Although domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are well-known for their olfactory abilities and scent marking behaviours, their use of pedal scent for communication remains unknown. We studied the reaction of intact dogs of both sexes to male and female pedal scent as well as a control sample of scent taken from the ground, using sniffing time and nostril usage as an indicator of interest level and emotional valence. In male subjects, only the sniffing duration for other males differed from the control samples, with no clear difference detected between male and female scent. Females showed no difference in the sniffing duration for any sample type. Conversely, male nostril use did not differ between the sample types, whereas females demonstrated a right nostril bias when sniffing the scent from other females and a left nostril bias when sniffing the control. We have shown that dogs recognize scent taken from the pedal glands from other dogs, although the extent to which they use this information to determine the sex of the scent depositor remains unclear.
食肉动物在很大程度上依赖气味与同类进行交流。位于脚底的气味腺提供了一种特别有效的留下气味踪迹的方式。尽管家犬（犬属家犬）以其嗅觉能力和气味标记行为而闻名，但其利用足部气味进行交流的情况仍不为人知。我们使用嗅闻时间和鼻孔使用情况作为兴趣水平和情绪效价的指标，研究了未绝育的雌雄犬对雄性和雌性足部气味以及从地面采集的对照气味样本的反应。在雄性受试犬中，只有对其他雄性的嗅闻持续时间与对照样本不同，雄性和雌性气味之间未检测到明显差异。雌性对任何样本类型的嗅闻持续时间均无差异。相反，样本类型之间雄性的鼻孔使用情况没有差异，而雌性在嗅闻其他雌性的气味时表现出右鼻孔偏好，在嗅闻对照气味时表现出左鼻孔偏好。我们已经表明，犬能够识别来自其他犬足部腺体的气味，尽管它们利用这些信息来确定气味留下者性别的程度仍不清楚。
