If a Lab's sense of smell is so good

[Samson]

then why does he have to get his nose within a hairs breadth of another dogs anus

or

is this the doggy version of a peck on the cheek ?

[SharonaZamboni]

Maybe they want an uncontaminated whiff of the essence of bum, with no other smells mixed in!

[mitziandjudysmom]

The subtle nuances of the essence of anus is harder to detect at a distance.

[Samson]

See when my boys bury their noses into a friend, subtle nuances doesn't spring to mind LOL

[morla]

I have always wanted to know what my lab is thinking sometimes!

[HersheyK's Dad]

There is an old story about why they do that. They are looking for the true King of the Pack.

The story goes something like this.

The King died. The dogs needed a new king. They set up daring feats for the candidates to tackle, but all the dogs that tried, died in the attempts. So the dogs got together to rethink the problem. They went to the dead king's body and searched for clues as to what made him a good king.

They discovered that his butt smelled different than all the other dogs. So to this day, they have to great every dog by smelling his or her butt in thehopes of finding their king.

[MidwestGirl]

It's never a pretty sight!

[HarveysMum]

There is an old story about why they do that. They are looking for the true King of the Pack.

The story goes something like this.

The King died. The dogs needed a new king. They set up daring feats for the candidates to tackle, but all the dogs that tried, died in the attempts. So the dogs got together to rethink the problem. They went to the dead king's body and searched for clues as to what made him a good king.

They discovered that his butt smelled different than all the other dogs. So to this day, they have to great every dog by smelling his or her butt in thehopes of finding their king.

LOL! The story i got told went something like this....

All the dogs had to go to dog church, they had to hang their tails up when they went in. One day, whilst all the dogs where in church, the church caught fire, as the dogs rushed out they all grabbed a tail, but they all grabbed some other dogs tail in the chaos. Therefore, they are not sniffing anus, they are sniffing the tail to find out if it is thier tail or not. If they are later seen to be 'chasing their tail', that means they have located the correct tail and are trying to pull the wrong one off