Do dogs have belly buttons?

When you write blogs about animals on the internet, you’d be amazed at some of the peculiar questions that one gets asked. One particularly interesting topic came up recently and we’re not ones to shy away from the difficult questions, so in today’s blog post we will answer the quizzical conundrum that is; do dogs have belly buttons?

Innies and outties

Yes, dogs do indeed have belly buttons, but they might not be recognisable to you at first glance. While we humans are far more used to comparing our innies and outties, dogs belly buttons are far more subtle and they can even be hard to find, but we can promise you that they are there. In fact, it’s worth stating that all mammals (with the exception of marsupials that have their own arrangement) have belly buttons. So from mice to elephants and even whales – they’ve all got a belly button.

Why is it hard to spot?

When humans give birth, these days, a doctor or nurse will typically take care of the umbilical chord that attaches a baby to their mother, and will sort of tidy it up a bit on the baby’s end and eventually, it will become the cute little innie or outtie that you’d expect. Dogs don’t have this luxury and mama dog will simply bite through the chord attaching her to her puppy. A puppy’s body is expecting this and the wound that this leaves will heal by itself in a very short amount of time. Because they’re not clamped off like those belonging to human babies, the belly button heals in a much more subtle way.

If you really want to find your dog’s belly button, you may be looking in the wrong place as their navels tend to be higher up in between their nipples. You’ll often find a darker patch of fur around it, and it’ll be more like a small scar or raised bump.

We hope that that’s solved this conundrum for you. It’s worth remembering that it’s humans who are the odd ones out when it comes to belly buttons – no other mammal has such a distinctively large and obvious belly button as we do, so that’s something for us to be proud of, at least. 

After putting your dog through all the trouble of rummaging around looking for their belly button, why not give it a treat to thank it for its patience when it comes to dealing with human curiosity? You can find a delightful range of healthy treats here at tails.com