Scent glands

[Kelpten]

Ok, real wolves have scent glands in their tails. They typically become active in the spring and are used to mark their territory. Even weak human noses can smell a glanding wolf for about an 8 foot radius, and everything they rub against reaks of it for a day or so. During the spring my dog wouldn't let me touch her, I smelled so bad. She would literrally bare her teeth and growl at me because my own scent was completely masked.

So... here's the question. What if werewolves had a gland in their tail? Would there be an equivilent in their human form? Would they smell even as a human? What difficulties would this entail, ext. ext. Take it way my friends!

[Vagrant]

Oh I like this!

I suppose it could be disguised as body odour, at least to Humans, but it would be a definite tell-tale sign for Hunters who recognise the smell, or could use Dogs to track it.

I'd imagine that the gestalt form would have it there, but a very toned down version of it, so it's still potent, but not enough to be picked up by Humans. They could still be tracked down by Dogs though, so when their scent glands are active, they may have to go 'underground'.

Werewolves living in a hostile area may actually have to find a way to have those glands permanently removed (in a way they won't regenerate), or they may have to find and use tricks to mask the scent in one much stronger, so the previous scent isn't picked up (much like what you've talked about with your Dog). I imagine that would be easy for a Werewolf to do, as they can pick up the scents so acutely.

As for Human form, the smell will likely 'hang' with them once they've been in gestalt for any amount of time, as bad odours tend to do, hence the need to hide it. So Humans wouldn't have any scent glands, but just like a person who eats onion, the smell would stick with them.

This might also mean that Werewolves will need to avoid switching to Wolf as well when those glands are active; food for thought...

[Wingman]

I have read of a lot of werewolves that had a unique smell, usually smelling like the forest, or something you'd associate with the forest. So maybe. Though, really, they've got as much chance of retaining whiskers as scent glands, if they're retaining any. Which might lead to mustaches that tickle when the nearby air pressure changes.

But yeah, as V says, it might be mistaken for a perfume or cologne. And really, like unibrows, it doesn't make much sense for them to be retaining one aspect if they're not also retaining other aspects, even if in diminished or dormant form.

[Terastas]

I'm going to go with Vagrant on this one. If werewolves do have scent glands, it would have to be something that we humans have but lack the sophisticated sense of smell necessary to detect and decode it.

Since werewolves (I'm presuming) began as humans and live predominantly in human form, I'm assuming the scent would be at least more closely resembling a human scent than a canine one. Or at the very least it would appear to be a human odor to a human nose -- a werewolf's sense of smell should be accurate enough to recognize it as being something entirely different from just a human with the scent of another dog lingering on him.

[Scott Gardener]

Wolves also have strong scents behind the ears. Humans turned-lupine might be more amiable towards sniffing around one's ears than one's derriere, and thus for casual social contact, this might be a better way for lycanthropes to notice and remember each other.

The scent glands around the tail, once emptied, take about 24-48 hours to fill up again. And thus, a werewolf who has been in partial or complete wolf for that much time or longer may want to go to the bathroom before shifting back, as that will also empty out the scent glands at the same time. Otherwise, upon shifting back, the glands shrinking away would squirt out their contents rather forcefully, and one might be mistaken for a were-skunk.

[Goliathe Dark]

I understand how the ears thing might make more sense; but when a werewolf turns back would the tail shrink to practically nothing or would it fall off because if it fell off I don't believe it would even have scent glands there.

[Terastas]

Wolves also have strong scents behind the ears. Humans turned-lupine might be more amiable towards sniffing around one's ears than one's derriere, and thus for casual social contact, this might be a better way for lycanthropes to notice and remember each other.

With that in mind, the hybrid (read: gestalt) greeting between wolf and man might be the euro kiss, only sniffing the air on either side of the person's face instead of blowing kisses at it.

[Blaze]

I'm going to go with what V said, because Humans probably don't have the acute sense of smell needed to tell if it's a werewolf or not. Except for werewolf hunters.

[Terastas]

I'm going to go with what V said, because Humans probably don't have the acute sense of smell needed to tell if it's a werewolf or not. Except for werewolf hunters.

I don't really see why one human would have acute enough senses to detect it while another would not. Unless, of course, a werewolf's scent is something we can detect but commonly mistake for that of something else. Werewolves are far from the average person's mind, but were that the case, a werewolf hunter might recognize it due to his/her presumptive obsession with werewolves. However, assuming the scents are similar, it would also make him prone to making the same mistake, only instead of smelling a werewolf and assuming it is something else, he'd more often smell that same something else and mistake it for that of a werewolf.

[IndianaJones]

If a drunken werewolf sniffs a Skunk's tail, I bet the skunk would spray it on his/her face. The results can be funny and dangerous.

[kinkiwizard]

My first visit to this website. I was directed here after a comment on youtube about this film trailer called the pack. I have since been informed that its a film in the making and pretty far off a finished film yet. I will try to get involved in these forums since i love all things werewolfy lol and a huge fan of films in that genre. On this subject i think its a clever aspect to include the idea that there would be scent thing going on, since its a wolf essentially so you would be a tad foolish to ignore the fact, but ive seen a movie where they tried to show the scent trail by using this glowing yellow mist which really.....didnt work for me plus it was way over used in the film. Its a nice idea though to have it as a signature for werewolfs and i think even when in human form they can pick it up...because there not really human are they they will have a few side effects. never completely wolf but never completely human either!
And the idea mentioned earlier where they might try to have the scent glands removed is brilliant i love the idea where this would be weakness aswell as an advantage.

[RedEye]

kinkiwizard, you really ought to post in the newcomer's forum and let us learn a bit more about you.
Your ideas are quite well thought out.

[Shingmanituu]

werewolves, I would say, probably have scent glands in all the wolfy places.I think that they would be only fully active when the form is lupine,rather than human.(human form they would be inert or non present/active)