Writing is one thing Man can do, but no other living beings can do. Writing is communication with someone who is not present. Someone who is at another place. Only Man can do that.
Or so I thought, until I read this very interesting book by John Bradshaw In Defence of Dogs. There is a brilliant chapter on the dog's sense of smell and how it is used. The scent-marks left by dogs contain a lot of information that can be picked up by other dogs. E.g. the identity of the dog, which can then maybe be matched with a dog, that your dog already knows. It may tell something about when the other dog was at that particular place etc. And there may be other information that we are not able to imagine because we do not perceive the world or communicate by means of odours.
We can only guess. Tonight, on my evening walk with my male Retriever, there were many such scent mark-messages left there by various dogs. One in particular aroused the interest of my Retriever. My guess is, that it was from a bitch telling other dogs passing by that she was ready for mating here and now.
"Pee-mail" is a catchy word for these kind of messages left along the roads and in the fields. Written in a secret language that only dogs can decipher.
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