I often see netizens roast about why they take the dog out for two hours every day and continue to demolish the house when he comes home? In fact, it is largely due to neglecting an important dog behavior – sniffing when outdoors.
According to data, when dogs take turns outside, they spend 33% of the time sniffing around. Dogs use their noses to read the world, and for dogs, sniffing is like humans constantly scrolling through their social media. Many pet owners interrupt their dogs from sniffing while walking, which goes against their nature. That’s why it’s not effective to walk dogs~
It’s not just the smell, it’s the strongest brain
Research has shown that training a dog’s sense of smell for 10 minutes is equivalent to walking for half an hour. Because dogs analyze odors through the olfactory center of the brain – the olfactory bulb – and constantly move their brain. For a puppy, sniffing is like piecing together a complex puzzle in the brain, which is very brain intensive!
Dogs’ olfactory bulbs occupy about 8% of the brain, which is 40 times that of humans. This indicates that dogs have a strong ability to analyze and remember odors, as they can distinguish thousands of different odors and remember them.
For example, when was this tree planted? There used to be a dog under this tree who had urinated before. Judging the dog’s gender, body size, and even its mood through the smell of urine is simply a superpower!
If your dog has left a trace of urine next to this tree, it can be seen that the dog is very interested in the source of this smell, likes and comments, and leaves contact information!
Sniff out emotions
At the top of the dog’s mouth, there is a completely independent olfactory system, the vomeronasal organ, which can detect pheromones emitted by all animals, which is a chemical substance carrying information such as gender, age, and health. Through the plow nose device, dogs can identify potential partners, enemies, friends, relatives, etc. They can also perceive the emotional changes of fecal diggers through the different hormones emitted by humans in different emotional states.
Some dogs can pay attention to the emotional changes of the pooper, and they will immediately know and try to tell you, but we may not understand~
Dog shaped alarm clock: sniffing out time
Dogs use their noses to sense the passage of time.
Horowit, founder of the Dog Cognition Laboratory at Barnard College, has mentioned this phenomenon in her book. If you go home at the same time every day, the puppy will form a pattern, meaning that once the owner’s scent decreases to a certain extent, the dog will notice that you are going home.
For example, if you get home at 7 pm every night,
The puppy will remember the time you came back=the concentration of your scent in the air at this moment
Then I’ll lie at the door early and wait for you to come back~
Dog: Smelling makes me happy
Smelling is also a way for dogs to socialize and explore the world.
If dogs are always prevented from sniffing, they may become anxious and depressed because their sniffing needs are not met and they cannot collect external information, just like how we, who have had our phones confiscated, must feel isolated from the world and of course, anxious~
- When walking the dog, smell freely
Walking dogs is not only to solve their excretion problems, but also to make them feel happy both physically and mentally. So, it is recommended that when taking dogs for outdoor activities, it is important to respect their nature and let them sniff and sniff everywhere. However, if a dog has a habit of picking up food everywhere, it needs to be corrected in a timely manner!
- Indoor play sniffing game
In addition, you can also play sniffing games for your dog at home to enhance its senses and release energy. Moreover, sniffing pads can also improve dogs’ fast eating habits, slow down their eating speed, help with digestion, and achieve more with one go~~
Smell scanner
In general, even dogs with a dull sense of smell have an olfactory ability that is 40-60 times higher than that of humans. If some dogs or police dogs have undergone professional olfactory training, their olfactory ability can be hundreds or thousands of times higher than that of humans.
German scientists have trained a cancer sniffing dog that can specifically smell the smell of lung cancer cells. After testing, this cancer sniffing dog can accurately detect whether humans have lung cancer with an accuracy rate of up to 70%, but not all dogs have this strength~
In addition, among search and rescue dogs, such as the German Shepherd, Labrador, Golden Retriever, and Spencer, due to their own advantages, they can perform quite well in their work, so their role is often irreplaceable in the post disaster search and rescue process.
