Why do Dogs Roll in the Grass?

If your dog is anything like mine, she loves rolling around in a patch of grass any chance she gets. And it always makes me happy to watch my dog, Nala, have the time of her life. 【小题1】. Is she cooling off? Is she just super happy? What could it be?

To find out why Nala and so many other dogs like to stop, drop and roll, I reached out to Dr. Stephanie Austin, a veterinarian at Bond Vetin New York City, who explained that dogs can roll in the grass for several reasons! 【小题2】

She’s enjoying a smell. 【小题3】. “They are picking up on hundreds of scents that we can’t even comprehend!” Dr. Austin said. “Sometimes they want to enjoy a scent they’ve found in the grass and will roll around in it to do just that.”

She’s covering up her own scent. According to Dr. Austin, there’s another smelly reason why your pup may be rolling around in that patch of grass. “They want to smell like the environment so they don’t scare off their prey,” Dr. Austin said.

She’s cooling off. 【小题4】, that grass may look extra appealing to your dog. It might even be a little wet from a sprinkler—the perfect combo for your dog to cool off.

【小题5】 Your dog may also just be relaxed and having fun—and rolling on her back is away to show it!

She’s scratching an itch. “It’s good to exclude any allergies and make sure your dog isn’t rolling a ton to scratch a constantly itchy back or side, but otherwise, it’s probably normal that she’s having a good time,” Dr. Austin said.

If you notice your dog rolling around in the grass, it’s probably just her having the best time ever.

Last week, Chicago became the first city in the US to join the “Lights Out Plan”. People turned off the lights in the city’s tallest buildings, so that thousands of birds could get to their winter homes. Every year in autumn, some birds fly over Chicago on their way to the south, and come back the next spring.

Lights mean danger to birds. Birds find their way by looking at the stars in the sky. Lights in tall buildings are so bright that birds may mistake them as stars. This means they cannot find the right way to go home.

This month, about 300 types of birds are flying over Chicago to go back to the south to live through the cold winter. Birds fly to warmer places for a few reasons. Many birds cannot live in the cold, so they fly to warmer places. But there are other reasons, too. Birds need to look for food in the south. Another reason is that they want to have baby birds. Many birds like to have their baby birds in the same “house” they lived in last year, so they fly back there.

There are about 9,000 kinds of birds in the world, and about 600 kinds of birds migrate. Some birds can fly a very long way. Sometimes they fly to other countries. We have fewer birds today because there are fewer places for birds.

Australia is the only major honey-producing country that has so far managed to contain the spread of a mite which is harmful to bees. The first step is pouring gas into the beehive. Then it’s time to wait. The job is finished when the hive is burned the next day.

Since last week, this cycle has been on repeat near a port in eastern Australia, part of a government effort to protect the country’s multimillion dollar honey industry. Millions of bees have been destroyed to help contain the spread of the deadly mite, which reappeared in the country last week near the Port of Newcastle. If the mite became established in Australia, it could cost the nation’s honey industry more than $70 million a year, in addition to its effect on the crops that rely on bee pollination.

The mites, which are reddish-brown and about the size of a sesame seed, can spread from bee to bee and through beekeeping equipment. If left untreated, the mites could kill an entire colony of honey bees, the government has said.

It’s not easy to contain the mite. One of the biggest challenges in the current containment effort is figuring out the location of infected hives and mapping their spread in a vast region, according to Danny Le Feuvre, the acting head of the Australian Honey Bee Industrial Council. It’s necessary to contain the Port of Newcastle and the hives within a 31-mile radius(半径)of it. The port is a major shipping destination and one of the world’s busiest export centres for coal.

So far at least 600 hives have been destroyed in the area. “The beekeepers are very nervous at the moment,” Mr. Feuvre said. He said he was confident the country would be able to contain the spread, given its history of previous eradication efforts of honey bee mites and strict controls at all airports stopping passengers from bringing live plants, soil, fruits and vegetables into Australia.