Worm rolling

Question
When my otherwise normal 10-year old beagle finds a dead worm on the driveway, she rolls and rubs herself in it. Then she salivates extensively. She doesn't attempt to eat the dead worm, but just rolls herself over the worm until it's pretty much obliterated. What's this all about?

Answer
Please forgive my tardiness in answering you, system was down for a week.

This delightful phenomenon is one of the leftovers from the genetic gene pool of pools of wild dogs and wolves. It is hard wired into their brains, and they will often roll in decomposing carcasses or the feces of plant eating animals or herbivores. They supposedly do this to mask their own scent and make it so they can sneak up on their prey without detection. Current thought is that this instinct is what we are seeing in the behavior of domesticated dogs as well. Working and hunting dogs tend to roll in smelly stuff more often than other breeds maybe because they are more closely related to wolves.