Tweet
No no....not as in months without a bath smell....but as in, ability to smell with their ever keen noses.
Dogs have an amazing sense of smell. My friend describes when a dog sniffs out the window of a car, that it's like a "smorg of smells", from all over the place, hitting their noses all at once.
And here are some details from a source...
"To gain more respect for your dog’s olfactory ability, compare it to a person’s nose. Inside the nose of both species are bony scroll-shaped plates, called turbinates, over which air passes. A microscopic view of this organ reveals a thick, spongy membrane that contains most of the scent-detecting cells, as well as the nerves that transport information to the brain. In humans, the area containing these odor analyzers is about one square inch, or the size of a postage stamp. If you could unfold this area in a dog, on the other hand, it may be as large as 60 square inches, or just under the size of a piece of typing paper.
A dog’s brain is also specialized for identifying scents. The percentage of the dog’s brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is actually 40 times larger than that of a human! It’s been estimated that dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than nasally challenged humans can."
So is it any wonder that your lovely pet spends so much time sniffing around....sniffing, sniffing, sniffing!
And there are some benefits for us owners as well. For example, every year or two a mouse or two find their way to the underside of our deck. The other day our dog started smelling around the deck, more so than usual. So I put out a "humane" trap, and sure enough, I caught one. I am sure you can all understand the need to do so, given the damage mice can do....as in, briefly living in my garage insulation a number of years ago. Needless to say, I had to replace a lot of it!
And I find it so cute how she will trace our steps from our other "detached" garage, whenever we go in and out of it. She smells where we've been, and often an hour or more later.
Dogs are fabulous pets, as most will attest! And yes, I sure respect their sense of smell. I can't even imagine how powerful that would be for us humans. Then again, would it amplify "negative" smells? Hmmmm...not sure I'd like that part of the deal.
Dogs have an amazing sense of smell. My friend describes when a dog sniffs out the window of a car, that it's like a "smorg of smells", from all over the place, hitting their noses all at once.
And here are some details from a source...
"To gain more respect for your dog’s olfactory ability, compare it to a person’s nose. Inside the nose of both species are bony scroll-shaped plates, called turbinates, over which air passes. A microscopic view of this organ reveals a thick, spongy membrane that contains most of the scent-detecting cells, as well as the nerves that transport information to the brain. In humans, the area containing these odor analyzers is about one square inch, or the size of a postage stamp. If you could unfold this area in a dog, on the other hand, it may be as large as 60 square inches, or just under the size of a piece of typing paper.
A dog’s brain is also specialized for identifying scents. The percentage of the dog’s brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is actually 40 times larger than that of a human! It’s been estimated that dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than nasally challenged humans can."
So is it any wonder that your lovely pet spends so much time sniffing around....sniffing, sniffing, sniffing!
And there are some benefits for us owners as well. For example, every year or two a mouse or two find their way to the underside of our deck. The other day our dog started smelling around the deck, more so than usual. So I put out a "humane" trap, and sure enough, I caught one. I am sure you can all understand the need to do so, given the damage mice can do....as in, briefly living in my garage insulation a number of years ago. Needless to say, I had to replace a lot of it!
And I find it so cute how she will trace our steps from our other "detached" garage, whenever we go in and out of it. She smells where we've been, and often an hour or more later.
Dogs are fabulous pets, as most will attest! And yes, I sure respect their sense of smell. I can't even imagine how powerful that would be for us humans. Then again, would it amplify "negative" smells? Hmmmm...not sure I'd like that part of the deal.
Comment