Dear Zeke...letters to my dog

Let's say I go on a trip. If I wanted to write a letter home to my dog, what exactly could I say? I suppose I could carry the paper around while I travel and rub it on things I encounter, maybe even against a pole or hydrant so he can sample the locals. I could rub a different section of the paper with my hand at different parts of the day. This way he'd have a chronologdical olfactory logd of what I'd been doing.

Do dogs read from left to right and top to bottom?

When I climb into the car after buying something or visiting an ATM I'll hold out the dollar bills for Zeke to sample. Sometimes he is quite interested, others he couldn't care less.

When driving I'll turn on the outside air vent for Zeke and he'll lean over to sniff-it-out. Dognose radio. He becomes quite animated at times, switching from one vent to the other as if extra information is coming from the other side. Stereo dognose radio.

Unfortunately auto makers didn't take this into account and all of the air comes in through one tube and gets distributed amongst all of the vents. Aftermarket opportunity here. Like neighborhood shaking aftermarket stereos which fill the senses of young music fanatics I could market a dognose radio system for filling the minds of traveling canines. Each air vent fed from a different outside hose. An entire olfactory command and control center installed with a nose-friendly interface.

Or I could open the windows.

Back to the letter. How would I sign it. Thumbprint? Saliva? Lock of hair? Is the concept of closure too foreign for a dog? Aren't they too much like people who won't say goodbye?

And how the heck do you send a scent? We humans are pretty pathetic when it comes to the world of smell. You're either an old spice man or you aren't. There's really no complexity about our smell, at least that we are fully aware of. We don't micro manage it like the visual aspect of our lives. Regular bathing, maybe a dash of this or that, breath mint before the date, skip the garlic before a meeting, but that's about it. Our olfactory world is painted with the broadest of brushes. Our commercial products reek chemical cocktails of manufactured reality...dialed to eleven.

It's not that we aren't capable of nose subtleties, I think it's just more work. I've caught the faintest of odors which brought up memories from long back, yet was unable to describe the smell. Walking in the woods I've had my hackles go up in unison with Zeke's at some drifting smell, but again no idea what it was.

Zip-lock bag?

Dear Zeke,

Here is my letter in three zip lock bags so
one page doesn't obfuscate another. Hope all is
well with you, but I just can't seem to come
up with a smell that truly imparts such information.

 Your buddy,
   
(scented smudge)

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