Reference point
Smell a dog that has just been bathed or caught in the rain.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Damp, savoury, with a mushroom note and a layer of grease. Many times stronger than a dry dog.
Water adds no smell. It only releases what is already on the fur — and that is the whole mechanism.
This entry is useful because it shows that moisture is a variable of smell, not a smell in itself.
How to smell it
Smell the dog when dry, then straight after it gets wet. The same animal, the same day, two intensities orders of magnitude apart. You need no other dog to learn this lesson.
Why this one is hard
Because disgust usually arrives first. To smell it properly you have to accept that this is a normal biological smell, not a sign of dirt.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Wet dog
Animalic family
The same mechanism: water does not create smell but releases what is already there. Dog fur gives savoury and mushroom notes; clay gives a mineral note.
Scientific note
A dog’s coat carries a community of bacteria and yeasts. They continuously produce volatile organic compounds, but when dry these cling to the surface. Water breaks that bond and pushes them into the air with the rising vapour. It is the same mechanism as wet clay — water does not create smell; water releases it.
In Vietnamese life
Dogs are the most common pets in the Vietnamese countryside, usually free-roaming and seldom bathed. The smell of a wet dog is therefore tied to rain and to the yard rather than to bathing.