{"id":823,"date":"2026-01-18T16:36:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/?p=823"},"modified":"2026-01-18T16:44:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T16:44:48","slug":"the-dog-preferred-to-smell-something-else-rather-than-me-clearly-she-didnt-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/18\/the-dog-preferred-to-smell-something-else-rather-than-me-clearly-she-didnt-like-me\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe dog preferred to smell something else rather than me \u2014 clearly, she didn\u2019t like me.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I heard this from a lady the other day while we were out and about with our dog. She seemed quite confident at first that our dog would happily walk up to her to sniff her \u2014 and perhaps even accept a pat or two. Instead, halfway through approaching, my dog turned around to sniff the ground. Maybe it was a displacement behaviour due to a build-up of stress or anxiety, or maybe the ground had a very<\/em> interesting smell. I honestly don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I did hear, though, was a \u201coh well, clearly she didn\u2019t like me,\u201d accompanied by a giggle that barely hid her disappointment. This got me thinking about the concept of \u201cliking\u201d and how this can be understood from a dog\u2019s perspective. We need to keep in mind that the idea of like\/dislike is human-made and can differ greatly from one individual to another. Now, for a second, imagine how different this concept might be when it comes to dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does a dog smelling you mean they like you? I would say no \u2014 mostly because, to this day, we still don\u2019t quite understand why dogs choose to smell one person and avoid another. Perhaps a strong perfume draws a dog away from person X, while the lingering smell of a recently cooked meal brings a dog closer to person Y. But we don\u2019t actually know this to be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a dog chooses to walk away midway to sniff something else, this says nothing about the person\u2019s qualities, but rather reflects the dog\u2019s preferences and choices in that moment. One thing we know for certain about dogs \u2014 as with humans \u2014 is that we can all have off days, and we can all change our minds in a split second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is increasing evidence that dogs\u2019 minds are remarkable, with flexible memory systems and the ability to form concepts. These processes may not look like human cognition, but they don\u2019t appear to be any less complex or meaningful. What are some of your misconceptions when it comes to dogs and why they do things?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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I heard this from a lady the other day while we were out and about with our dog. She seemed quite confident at first that our dog would happily walk up to her to sniff her \u2014 and perhaps even accept a pat or two. Instead, halfway through approaching, my dog turned around to sniff … <\/p>\n

Read more “\u201cThe dog preferred to smell something else rather than me \u2014 clearly, she didn\u2019t like me.\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluentfido.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}