Dogs and their sense of smell
Written by: Anastasia Spevakina
Dogs see the world as a stream of scents. They do not have perfect vision, but their sense of scent completely compensates it. The number of olfactory cells in the dog’s nose is 230 millions, and in human nose just 10 millions. For instance, dog s can easily smell a single drop of blood in five liters of water and distinguish to what animal the piece of meat belongs – rabbit, pork or sheep, and a man will not be able to do it.
Dogs can distinguish almost half a million of different smells or even more, according to other sources and researches. Detection of smells is like reading newspapers for them, but much more interesting. Sniffing another dog’s feces, the dog can determine its gender, know for how long he was there and understand if he is dangerous or not.
Couple of seconds is enough for your dog to smell you and know everything about you as well. Even at the first meeting dogs can have impression about people, and this “scent” impression will not be interrupted by any other smells – whether it’s perfume, smell of food or machine oil. Dogs remember the smell of owners and associate it with positive emotions.
The most important scents, which dogs care about, meeting a new owner, are sweat, skin and pheromones. These smells will determine whether the dog has sympathy to a person or he will growl during the next meeting. When the dog feels the smell of a human he likes, it gives a positive reaction in the part of brain, which is associated with pleasure. The pet reacts in the same way as a man in love – to perfume of the woman he loves.
Interesting fact: If the dog will see your face on the phone screen, he might not recognize you or have doubts if it’s you or not, but if he feels your smell with closed eyes, he will understand that it’s you.
There are many examples in families, when dogs like the owner, but don’t like his wife. Just entering a house and new family, dogs decide who of the family members will be the “commander in chief”. If the dog is choosing a man, probably he has an innate sense of domination, choosing a person with the lowest and stern voice.
However, dogs, raised by women, get used to female voices and smells. They feel safe in presence of women, being familiar with their behavior, appearance, movements and smell. In the presence of man near their lovely female owners they start being jealous.
There are some smells, which dogs don’t like. First of all, of course dogs don’t like the smell of citrus – oranges and lemons. One more product, which can threaten your dog is a chilli pepper. It causes eye and skin irritation. Another strong smell, which our dogs don’t like, is the vinegar. Dogs can not stand the smell. You should be very careful with these products, because the can harm your dog’s health.
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