The incredible sense of smell of dogs is 100,000 times more powerful than that of humans

We all know that dogs have an excellent sense of smell, capable of sensing the arrival of their owner when he is still blocks away, finding drugs in airports or rescuing a person lost in a forest. But when we come across scientific data, we realize that the differences between dogs and humans are astounding. The ability of these animals to sense and identify scents can be up to 100,000 times more acute than ours!

O awesome.club gathered information from research that shows how good dogs are – and how they can be useful in solving crimes and saving lives. And at the end of the post we have a bonus to brighten your day.

Human beings have around 6 million olfactory receptors, which is not small, since we are capable of detecting something like 1 trillion scents. But depending on the breed, dogs have up to 300 million of these receptors, located in the tissues of the airways, that recognize odor molecules and send electrical signals to the brain, where scents are analyzed. To add to this difference, the part of the dog’s brain dedicated to analyzing scents is 40 times more sensitive than that of humans.

There is another important feature that differentiates dogs’ sense of smell from ours. When we breathe, we smell and inhale the air in the same ways. In other words, everything is mixed. Dogs, on the other hand, have a layer of tissue that separates breathing and smell. It is a kind of “filter” that separates about 12% of the air for the perception of aromas. Also, when they release air, dogs continue to smell. That’s why it’s common to see puppies breathing frantically when they want to find something using their sense of smell.

Complicating things a little further, dogs are still able to use their nostrils separately to detect different smells — and know exactly what those scents are. “Because we have a poorer sense of smell than dogs, we enter an environment where someone is cooking a chili, for example, and we feel the aromas of the food all mixed together. But dogs can identify each of the ingredients; feel the meat, the tomatoes, the spices, the peppers — all separately,” explains American neuropsychologist Stanley Coren, author of the bestseller The Intelligence of Dogs🇧🇷

The differences — and the olfactory advantages of dogs over us — don’t stop there. Dogs and other animals have an organ that humans do not. It is the Jacobson’s organ, located between the nose and mouth, that allows detecting pheromones, particular scents of each species that indicate the moment of mating or send other types of signals (of danger, for example) to the members of a pack.

With all these olfactory qualities, it is common for dogs to play important roles not only in the fight against crime. They help diagnose diseases, work together with biologists on the high seas and act in rescue work in the most varied types of environment. Here are some of the things dogs with trained skills can spot:

Missing people — they are trained to recognize the human scent in the most different terrains. They were very useful, for example, in rescuing victims of the Brumadinho tragedy, in Minas Gerais. Diseases like cancer and diabetes — dogs can be taught to respond to the odors of certain cancers and other ailments, helping doctors make diagnoses. pumps —we are all too familiar with the stories of drug-sniffing dogs, which are always present in the news. But police and army animals are also trained to find hidden explosives and save many people’s lives. Truffles — this delicacy is a fungus that grows underground, in forests, and costs good money in restaurants and fine emporiums. Sniffer dogs indicate the exact places where truffles are. whale poop — you didn’t read it wrong! North American researchers train dogs that can, from the top of a boat, indicate the location of this material submerged in the seas. Collected feces are important for scientists to study and monitor the health of whale populations.

We already know that dogs are born with a natural talent for perceiving the world through smell and obeying the orders of their owners. But training a sniffer dog is a delicate job, which requires persistence from both the animal and the teacher. The path is generally as follows:

Dogs begin to be trained from puppies and, in this first stage, the most dedicated and curious ones are selected (yes, there are the laziest puppies for the service); First they learn to respect the coach’s voice commands and gestures, to prevent them from attacking people on the streets; When the dog is one year old, he begins to be trained to identify specific aromas of drugs or other substances that you want them to find; When they identify the correct substance, they receive affection and rewards from the trainers. In this phase, another screening is carried out to identify which are the most suitable for the job; The final test is carried out in the places where the dog will have to act, such as highways, airports and borders. You need to know if he will behave well in the crowd.

Dogs trained to work in rescues follow a person’s scent, whether in a forest or in the rubble of a landslide. They can even locate dead bodies underwater. One of its “techniques” is to follow the trail of the scent of someone missing on the ground where the person walked. Another ability of the sniffers is to smell the human scent in the air, traveling through the region where the search is carried out. Search and rescue dogs are animals carefully trained for specific functions, just like drug or explosives sniffers.

Some breeds are famous for their keen sense of smell and the obedience with which they respond to the trainer’s commands. Among them are the German Shepherd (commonly used by police around the world), the bloodhound, the basset hound, the beagle and the Labrador.

But pedigree or size isn’t everything in a dog’s life. In a truffle sniffing competition held in 2018 in the US state of Oregon, Gustave, a mestizo Chihuahua, a very tiny Mexican breed, won the cup.

What did you think of all these curiosities and information about the canine world? Do you have any good stories about a fine-nosed dog? Tell us in the comments!