Dog’s Key Sense of Smell

As most people already know, dogs have a great sense of smell. It may have something to do with the fact that some breeds of dogs can have up to 300million scent receptors in their noses, while humans have about 5million. These scent receptors can tell the brain many things about who is there, or what has happened.

Dog’s brains are only one-tenth the size of a human brain, but the part of the brain that controls smells is 40 times larger than in humans.  From this information, one can only wonder what it is that dogs can smell. Well, they pick up a scent called pheromone, found on skin, fur, and fecal, which tells them whether it’s an animal or human, where they’ve been, what they’ve eaten, and what kind of a mood they are in. For example, humans may only smell pizza sauce as one whole scent, whereas dogs smell each individual ingredient within the sauce. The basics of noses between humans and dogs are very similar, except for some key aspects.

Both species have bony plated, turbinates, that contains most of the scent-detecting cells and nerves that transport messages to the brain.  In humans, this plate is one square inch, but in dogs it can be as large as 60 square inches depending on the breed. That’s like comparing a postage stamp to a piece of typing paper.  The Jacobson’s Organ is another similarity, but it plays a bigger part in dog scent detectors.

The Jacobson’s Organ detects the pheromones, but it is also able to detect odors that regularly would be undetectable. An example would be the odor that helps a newborn find its mother. In Germany, scientists have found that dogs can even smell lung cancer on patients. With this information, they have the hope to find cancer quicker than before, while it is still treatable.

All in all, dogs have a larger and more in depth scent detectors than humans. Dogs can identify an entire story from just one smell, where humans only identify the one scent. There’s a reason dogs are used in the police force and for search and rescue operations, they can smell everything.

Have dogs been used in other medical discoveries, besides lung cancer?

Do other animals have scent abilities like that of a dog?

Do dogs have any other amazing abilities?

5 thoughts on “Dog’s Key Sense of Smell

  1. I really enjoyed reading this blog because I like dogs and it is interesting to read what they can do with their senses. Some of the things they can hear and smell are crazy! Like how they can smell cancer, drugs, and even every ingredient in pizza. Imagine if people could do the same thing we would be more prone to smells that could do damage to us and we would also be hungry a lot because we could smell all the food. Here is a site on dog senses.

    http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogsenses.htm

  2. A dog can hear 4 times more then the average human can. They can hear the heart beat of a mouse. The healthyer the dog the more it can hear. What makes them be able to hear more then humans is that they have 2 times more the amount of mucles in their ears so they can rotate them in responce to sound. They will usually tilt their head to the direction of the noise to capture more of the vibrations. This is why silent whisles can be used on dogs. Their ears allow them to hear the sound when we as humans can not.

    http://www.helium.com/items/1492175-how-do-dogs-hear

  3. I think it’s really interesting how the dogs can sniff out cancer and I think scientists can use that to an advantage even here in the United States. I believe that a dog is extremely smart even if it’s brain is one tenth the size of a humans, because like you said it can determine ingrediants in food and humans moods. Also a shark has a great sense of smell. Two thirds of their brain is just dedicated to smell. Overall this is a great article and you did an excellent job. http://largestfastestsmartest.co.uk/animals-with-the-best-sense-of-smell-in-the-world/

  4. This blog was so interesting! I never knew that dogs could smell the type of mood you’re in, cancers, or every ingredient in pizza sauce. I think it is really cool how dogs can tell what mood you’re in just by the way they smell. I also think it is interesting that an animal smells more things so much better than a human being. Also, if a dog can smell cancer, imagine the technology they could help with in detecting and curing cancer! This website, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/organic-authoritycom/dogs-smell-cancer_b_976797.html, shows more about dogs knowing about cancer. Great work!

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