The nose knows, and no one knows that better than dogs. They are so good at sniffing things out that their sense of smell is often described as 10,000 to 100,000 times better than humans. In fact, a dog’s sense of smell can be up to 100 million times greater than humans’, which equals about 1/10th the amount of a teaspoon in an Olympic-sized pool.
Ever since dogs were first domesticated, they’ve been our trusty allies. From rescues to search-and-rescue missions to sniffing out drugs and bombs, we’ve relied on these four-legged friends to help us. The one thing that has aided them most in giving us the support we need is their incredible sense of smell.
Dogs can smell up to 100,000 times better than humans can!
Dogs have 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to a mere 6 million. That means dogs can smell up to 100,000 times better than humans can! What’s more, the part of a dog’s brain devoted to analyzing smells is, proportionally speaking, 40 times greater than ours. This means that dogs have a powerful ability for scent discrimination—they can tell apart odours that are very similar to one another.
They use their sense of smell not only for survival and tracking but also to connect with other dogs. When they sniff each other out at the dog park, they’re getting to know each other much like how humans use conversation! The scents on each dog’s body give information about what they’ve eaten and who they’ve met recently—and it even tells other dogs how old they are!
It’s hard to make sense of a dog’s smell, so we probably won’t ever know precisely how they do it. Although a dog’s sense of smell plays a huge role in helping people, it also makes them vulnerable. Because they tend to be drawn toward dangerous situations (i.e., finding bombs).
By now, you should have a good understanding of why dogs have such a good sense of smell. Of course, there is much more to this that hasn’t been included here. However, we hope that this blog will help you understand why dogs are so unique and how they use their sense of smell to survive and lead a healthy life.
