A dog’s nose knows so much about their world.
Dogs have a great sense of smell, as we all know. From airports to hunting grounds, dogs’ noses give them plenty of work to do in this world alongside their humans. But every dog is different when it comes to their sense of smell, and do you really know what’s going on for your dog with their sense of smell?
Let’s take a closer look at what a dog’s nose knows and how.
Some facts about your dog’s nose:
- Humans have about 6 million receptors in their noses, but dogs have over 300 million! Whoa.
- The section of the brain that deals with smell in a dog is equally greater than that of the human brain.
- Dogs don’t just smell on the inhale.
- As they inhale, air flows into two distinct chambers: the olfactory area and the lungs.
- As the air goes into the olfactory area, you can imagine it’s as if it goes through a strainer.
- Your dog, then, on this inhale, separates the smells and identifies them. (So much going on!)
- Then on the exhale, the air goes through the small slits on the sides of their nose.
- As the smell exits, he can get a clearer sense of it.
Your dog is constantly – on the inhale and the exhale – smelling his world and breaking the smells down into smaller and more knowable bits.
On top of this, your dog can actually tell which smell came through which nostril.
And you should no longer wonder why a walk takes so long! Imagine the information they are taking in with every step and with every stop to smell even more!
But wait! That’s not it!
At the base of your dog’s nasal passage, they have a second scent organ called Jacobson’s organ. This organ is specific to your dog parsing out other animals’ pheromones. And there is evidence to suggest that this organ has its own nervous system connection to a specific part of your dog’s brain that is specifically for this pheromone work.
Things your dog can smell
File this under the category “the not so obvious stuff that your dog’s nose knows.”
- Your dog can actually smell when you are stressed. No wonder they make such great emotional helpers.
- In studies, dogs have been proven to be able to smell disease, including some cancers, the onset of a seizure, and low blood sugar, just to name a few.
- Not only can dogs smell a decades old cadaver, they are actually able to find remains that are upwards of 3000 years! You can see the research about that here.
- A dog might even know you’re pregnant before you do! Yep, they can smell the change in a woman’s hormones.
- They can smell bad weather coming, like tornadoes. It’s thought they can smell changes in the atmosphere.
A dog’s sense of smell is important to the quality of their life, so maintaining a healthy sense of smell is just another reason to feed your dog the best food you can and to take care of their needs. To read more about how you can take care of your aging dog better click that link.