When a convalescing dog needed help to pee, his human got the neighborhood involved

Sully the beagle mix recently had surgery for a torn knee ligament. The 8-year-old pup, who'll be out of his lampshade soon, is doing just fine. Recovery will be a couple months, and the doctor has ordered Sully to stay put — meaning he can only stay within the gated front yard of his human's South Pasadena home to answer nature's call.

Therein lies the problem.

" He won't go to the restroom here," said Sully's human, Rudy Martinez.

That's been the case ever since Martinez and his husband rescued the beagle mix from the nonprofit Mutt Scouts when he was 3.

Sully simply needs the scent of other dogs before he can do his own business.

" I think he just likes the smell of the dogs," Martinez said.

So Martinez put out a call on two "buy nothing" type groups on Facebook in late July asking dog owners in South Pasadena to bring their pooches inside his front yard to tinkle.

"I knew it was a weird ask and at first nobody responded," Martinez said.

Rudy Martinez posted on two local "buy nothing" type groups on Facebook, asking South Pasadena residents to bring their dogs to his front yard.

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Eventually, though, one person raised their hand, then another and another.

" And pretty soon, I was having at least one dog a day for a while," he said.

Martinez said people brought their kids along with their dogs. If Sully was home, he'd go out and mingle.

"He could sniff the dog and sniff before they went to the bathroom. And then he would just go immediately," he said.  "Other times I would be out and about and people would just drop by."

The science of dog scent

You didn't think that we'd miss an opportunity to provide some learning along with this feel-good story?

 "Dogs experience the world through their noses," said Sara Levy-Taylor, senior director of animal care at Pasadena Humane.

And what Sully and other dogs are engaging in is called  "scent marking." The scent of their pee, Levy-Taylor said, communicates information, such as age, gender, how healthy a dog is — and even their emotional state.

The scent triggers a chemical response from dogs to urinate in order to leave behind their own information behind.

"It is a way to mark a territory to say, 'I've been here and this is who I am,'" Levy-Taylor said.

And it's mostly just that — sizing each other up with their noses.

" They're responding to the smell they will sometimes mark over the scent to try to mask that scent," Levy-Taylor said. " It is not so much about wanting to be friends."

Maybe not for Sully. But for his human, it's been a little different.

"I have to be a little more brave in talking to my neighbors, saying 'Hey, would your dog mind coming into our yard and sniffing around. It'd help our dog out,'" said Martinez, who grew up in South Pasadena and has moved back into the neighborhood for about a year.

"But it's nice," he said, "since I've gotten to meet more neighbors."