If your dog is nearby, examine her nose from the outside. Go on, give it a touch. It might feel kind of squishy, cold, and wet. That moist, spongy exterior helps your dog’s nose capture scents on the air.
Now, notice the slits at the side of your dog’s nose. I always thought that was just an interesting cosmetic quirk, but it turns out, those slits are where your dog exhales. Dogs inhale through their nostrils and exhale through slits at the side of the nose , creating a circulation of air and scent molecules that lets them smell far more than we can even imagine.In addition to being able to smell substances in their environment, dogs have a second scent receptor in their nose called the vomeronasal organ that’s dedicated solely to sniffing out pheromones. The vomeronasal organ makes it possible for your dog to:
Identify potential mates
Discern between friendly animals and potential predators or enemies
Recognize their human companions’ emotional states
Notice when someone is pregnant
Notice when someone is getting sick (some dogs can even sniff out cancer )
WHY YOU SHOULD LET YOUR DOG SNIFF THE WORLD
It’s tempting to hurry your dog along when he’s lingering over a particularly odorous patch of sidewalk, but
according to Dr. Horowitz, pulling dogs away from smell-rich environments can cause their sense of smell to diminish.
If you pressure your dog to live in “our visual world,” she says, “they start attending to our pointing and our gestures and our facial expressions more, and less to smells.”
Of course, it’s nice when your dog pays attention to your expression, but you don’t want them to lose their true superpower: their incredible sense of smell!
Comments