Can I Use Perfume Around My Dogs?

Tough times are upon us with the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. With social distancing and lockdown in place, there is limited opportunity to head out into the open. Many around the world can’t wait to dress their best and smell even better as perfume has become an essential item for some. As a dog lover, have you ever thought about the impact of perfumes on your beloved pets at home? Let’s take a closer sniff at these perfumes and your dogs.

Dog Super Smelling Powers

Dogs have great smelling abilities and their noses are key to this prime sense that leads them on all kinds of adventures. Research suggests that dogs possess up to around 300 million olfactory cells. To put things into perspective, this many times more than us us humans. These receptors are responsible for binding odors and are a main component of the smell sensing system. Various recent studies have explored how olfactory functionality becomes distorted in human patients experiencing Coronavirus, leading to loss of smell and taste. With heightened smell abilities, you might want to think twice before spraying the vicinity with pungent fragrances. What may seem mellow and tame to your nose may be received magnitudes stronger in your dog’s lovely sniffer organ. We might compare this to spraying your favorite perfume in copious amounts into a gas mask and wearing it, it’s not pleasant.

It’s important to be cognizant of your dog’s heightened smelling abilities. Developing a caring and considerate approach to pet keeping takes patience and thinking with perspective. Understanding your dog and its sensing abilities is the best way to achieve this. Perfumes are volatile and can be considered on the extreme ends of scents for the canine nose. Complex volatile compounds that bind into your adorable pup’s nose will linger and cause unnecessary discomfort.

Volatile compounds are everywhere and it’s important to consider this when using products around your pets. If you can spray it, it’s most likely best to avoid using these products around your dog. The list of pungent and volatile items include air fresheners, hair spray and other ‘pleasant’ smelling products. You might be unaware but some perfumes are a concoction of various animal secretions and excrement extract. These scents can be highly confusing for your canine companion as it receives this chemical concoction up its nostrils.

Keeping perfumes out of reach is important too, some dogs may become curious about these sweet smelling scents. An immediate trip to the vet will be needed if they are able to get their paws on a bottle to try.

Effects on Dog Skin

Best practice of perfumes and other volatile products is to avoid using them directly around your pet. Aside from the issue of polluting their super smelling senses, there are risks relating to skin exposure. Perfumes are made of various chemicals, many being alcohol based. Exposing your dog to sprays that drift around in the air can be considerably damaging to both fur and skin. Sudden irritation and episodes of sneezing and signs of allergy can be indication of over exposure to volatile smelling perfumes or other product.

Maintaining a consistent cleaning and grooming regime will help to cleanse the skin of irritant chemicals. If you’ve worn your favorite fragrance and had a day out with your dog, give them a well-deserved clean when reaching home. Don’t forget to wash your dog’s paws often. Use a pet friendly unscented soap to give them a wonderful and enjoyable bath.

tldr:
You can still use perfume at home when you’re around your dogs, just make sure to avoid spraying them directly or indirectly. Keep your paw babies away from aromatic compounds and keep up with regular dog bathing and grooming. Woof! 🐾

References:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2018.00056/full
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dogs-sense-of-smell/

Images used in this post are taken from sources with no attribution required