Smell As A Trigger

[sandgrubber]

People discussing dog behaviour often talk about whether a response had a trigger or whether it was provoked.

Given how much of a dog's perception of the world comes through its nose, seems to me that we may be unaware of a lot of things that trigger dogs . . . eg, humping may be triggered by certain smells (it certainly is when you have a pack of girls and one comes on season). Aggression might, likewise, be triggered by smells . . . and there may be a special class of aggression triggered by fear smells. Or is 'the smell of fear' a myth? Seems very likely that dogs reactions to people are influenced by smell.

More generally, seems like, in discussing dog behaviour, we often forget that our perception of the world is very different from a dog's.