Mary Allen
The dog’s main sense is the sense of smell. It is often said that the dog’s sense of smell is superior to that of humans. But is it really true?
With his nose almost glued to the ground, the dog explores the world in its own way, through its sense of smell. The dog’s fantastic nose takes in most of all the information from the outside world. With training, dogs can learn to focus exclusively on a single scent, which is an incredible resource for us humans when, for example, hunting and searching for drugs.
This is How the Nose Works
The dog’s well-developed nose has a number of fantastic biological functions. The moist surface of the nose helps to collect and dissolve odor particles and the dog can use each nostril individually to more easily distinguish the source of the odor. Dogs breathe in and out via two different airways, this means that the dog can retain scent even during exhalation, unlike in us humans where the scent disappears until we breathe in again.
Inside the dog’s nose are two cavities separated by cartilage. In the cavities, there are so-called mussels, which are labyrinth-like structures that consist of skeletons that are covered with mucus. Mucus inside the nose fulfills the same function as the moist outside. From the nasal mussels, fragrances are transported onto the olfactory system.
The olfactory system is the dog’s scent center, where there are as many as 220-300 million scent receptors. Receptors then pass on information to the olfactory lobe of the dog’s brain, which is about four times that of humans.
Man’s bad sense of smell, a long-standing myth
It is often said that the dog’s sense of smell is 10,000-1,100,000 times better than that of humans. But brain researcher John McGann believes that the dog’s sense of smell is not at all superior to the human sense of smell. In a study (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6338/eaam7263) published in the journal Science (https://science.sciencemag.org/) in May 2017, McGann claims that humans’ bad sense of smell is just a long-standing myth that has persisted since the 20th century.
“When the sense of smell of humans and other mammals has been compared in studies, the results have been clearly different depending on which scents have been chosen. Probably because different animals have different odor receptors. In studies where a number of suitable scents have been used, humans have performed better on certain scents than laboratory rats and dogs, but also performed worse on others. Like other mammals, humans can distinguish incredible amounts of different scents and we can also follow scent traces outdoors. ”
Adapted for survival
Humans are better than dogs when it comes to odors from biological decay, such as the smell of a soil field, stagnant water, or food that has rotted or rotted. What they have in common is that they contain a substance called geosmin and that they can all potentially be harmful to us.
“If you pour a single drop of geosmin into a regular swimming pool, a person can smell it. There we are better than the dog “, says Johan Lundström who is a neuropsychologist and odor researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
Persistent and focused
However, the dog is undoubtedly better at separating and persistently focusing on specific scents and also better at picking up scents that have no connection to the species’ survival. The uses for the dog’s nose are many, ranging from tracking criminals, finding drugs and explosives to sounding the alarm just before an apple attack.
By practicing game tracking, chanterelle search, or nose work, you can stimulate your dog’s most important mind and get a happier dog. Maybe you can take the opportunity and test your own sense of smell at the same time?