On InternationalDogDay, learn more about why smaller dogs pee at higher angles.
Don't mess with me! That's the signal small dogs seem to be sending when they pee on things, according to a new study. Researchers have found that the smaller a pooch is, the higher it lifts its leg to mark lamp posts, trees, and other objects—and these exaggerated urine streams may fool other dogs into thinking a large canine is in the area.
"This paper is important because it looks at a neglected aspect of scent marking," Lynda Sharpe, an ecologist at Australian National University in Canberra, wrote in an email. Sharpe, who was not involved with the work, has studied dwarf mongooses that leave scent marks from their anal glands by doing handstands; she found that small males. It makes sense that dogs would do the same thing, she says.
Conducting the study wasn't easy. Betty McGuire, a behavioral ecologist at Cornell University, and her colleagues studied 45 dogs from two shelters in New York. The animals, mostly mixed breeds, were all adult males, because they're more likely to lift their legs when they pee. The researchers walked them outdoors in areas that included trees, benches, a fire hydrant, and other tempting targets, while recording from behind with an iPhone.
Still, the dogs may not be lying at all, but instead"overmarking," says James Serpell, an ethologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Dogs often like to cover up other dogs' pee with their own, he says. Small dogs may lift their legs higher simply because they're trying to reach a larger dog's urine spots.
Alternately, Serpell says, the explanation might be as simple as anatomy. Maybe all male dogs lift their legs as high as possible to pee, but small dogs are more limber.
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