How Well Do You Know About Your Fluffy Friend's Nose Work?

1.Why is my dog very fond of my slippers?
Humans have scents. They come from our breath and our skin. When we touch objects, we leave a bit of ourselves on them. If the object is porous - a soft slipper, say - and we spend a lot of time touching it - putting a foot in it, clutching it, carrying it under an arm - it becomes an extension of ourselves for a creature of the nose. The slipper may not look to us like an object that would be terribly interesting to a dog, but anyone who has returned home to find a ravaged slipper, or who has been tracked by the scent they’ve left thereon, knows otherwise.

2.Why does my dog have an intensive interest in the urine of other dogs?
Dogs, like reptiles, have a vomeronasal organ: it sits above the roof of the mouth, along the floor of the nose. It helps dogs to draw information from pheromones (hormonelike substances that usually prompt specific reactions - such as readying oneself for sex). These substances are often carried in a fluid: urine, in particular, is a great medium for one animal to send personalized information to members of the opposite sex about, say, one’s eagerness to mate.

3. Why can beagles be the best sniffer dogs?
The tissue of the inside of the dog nose is entirely blanketed with tiny receptor site, each with soldiers of hairs to help catch molecules of certain shapes and pin them down.While human noses have about 6 million of these sensory receptor sites, sheep dog noses have over 200 million; beagle noses, over 300 million, which perfectly explains why they can be among the best sniffers!



*Photo by Ayla Verschueren on Unsplash