A recent column in the Whole Dog Journal had these two sentences, part of a longer description of a coonhound learning to trust humans (the column is well worth a read; in fact, nearly everything in WDJ is worth reading):

The only clue we had that she actually did like attention was that if you sat in her presence, she would come and stand very close to you; she liked to put her face very near your face – a quite uncomfortable sensation with a dog who has no expression, and isn’t wagging her tail or trying to lick you. She would just approach, stand very close, and hold very still – odd.

This caught my attention because Cali does the same thing. Well, Cali has a very expressive face and is nearly always wagging her tail, sometimes even in her sleep. But the ‘putting her nose right next to people’s mouths’ part is the same.

I think that dogs do this to learn about people. They pick up a lot of information from smells, far more than whether we’re overdue for a dose of mouthwash. They learn about other dogs that way, both in person and by sniffing the ground.

Cali often does this breathing exercise while also giving the person a hug (she gives great hugs), possibly begging for a treat (or sniffing the person’s plate), or nuzzling the person. But often, she just inhales … soaking in the essence of her friend. And almost everyone is her friend — or would be if she could only meet them!

I’m not sure whether Cali is doing this more, as well as sniffing the ground more carefully and thoroughly since we started doing scent work classes or I am just noticing it more. But she does seem to be very attuned to her nose lately. When we played ball in the snow this morning, though, I noticed that she doesn’t seem to be able to detect the scent as easily. She ran right past her ball several times, sniffing the air, and did not seem to know it was there. She’s generally very good at finding it with her nose.

Of course, it could just be that she loves running around in the snow …