Hippos | Metafilter The one aspect not brought up is the *real* reason Escobar had these animals on his ranch: essentially, since smaller animals (i.e., drug-sniffing dogs) are naturally wary of larger animals (i.e., hippos, elephants, lions, etc), they would pack some of these beasts' dung in with the the cocaine shipments. If/when drug-sniffing dogs got near, they would shy away and not alert their handlers to the presence of cocaine.