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Understanding a dog's world...it's all about the smell

By John Howell
Posted 11/1/16

A nose is a nose, and whether the odor is picked up by one nostril or the other doesn't it all end up being a single scent? That's the way I think Ollie operates until I saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning." Dogs can apparently distinguish scents"

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This Side Up

Understanding a dog's world...it's all about the smell

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A nose is a nose, and whether the odor is picked up by one nostril or the other doesn’t it all end up being a single scent?

That’s the way I think Ollie operates until I saw a segment on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Dogs can apparently distinguish scents between nostrils.

The show didn’t offer scientific evidence. It is a conclusion based on the fact that dogs have 300 million olfactory receptors compared to our six million and the concept that smell makes up a dog’s world. Dogs even use smell to tell time believes Alexandra Horowitz, author of “Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell.”

To wrap your head around the concept of nostrils separately detecting smells – dogs start with the right and then go left – Horowitz, who was interviewed for the story, made the analogy to hearing and called it “stereo olfaction.” And that did it – I now have some concept of what that twitching nose just at the edge of the table is all about.

It’s Ollie. He waits for breakfast.

He’s motionless, his eyes watching intently. It’s the nose that is really taking in the scene. It is moist and ever so lightly twitching, almost like an eye moving without turning the head. At stereo right was the butter, a creamy smell as soft as a pillow. At stereo left was my coffee that even I, with six million olfactory receptors, could tell is slightly acrid but wonderfully velvety. Well, maybe not to Ollie.

His attention was squarely fixed on center stage, the main attraction of the morning – a slightly burned piece of whole grain toast that has already soaked in the broken yoke of a boiled egg. I looked into his dark eyes. I used to think he was begging for me to hand over that piece of toast, but after watching “CBS Sunday Morning” I know better. These weren’t the eyes of a beggar. They were the eyes of a dreamer. Ollie was experiencing the scene, taking in the complete picture, from what’s on the table to my smelly feet underneath it.

He knows better than to rest his chin on the table. I usually tell him to sit, which he readily does, but with my new knowledge I was curious to see whether I could measure his gift of smell.

The show raised some interesting questions about animals and how they perceive their world. Can they smell fear or love, Horowitz was asked? She thought that possible, whereas I would have guessed body language would have betrayed fear and that actions such as hugging, scratching behind the ears, and upbeat tones would show affection. Maybe not.

The show talked about research on whether dogs can detect diseases in humans, such as cancer, as displayed by their attention to these people.

Of course, dogs are used to sniff out drugs and explosives and to track down people, whether to catch them as they flee authorities or to rescue them. And when trained they are amazing companions and helpers for the handicapped.

The suggestion that dogs know how long you have left them by your smell – sort of like a picture fading in their minds – was a revelation. It makes sense. Before my son’s family brought home their dog, they left a stuffed animal with the litter for a week. When they brought the puppy home, he was accompanied by the stuffed animal. I always thought it was the stuffed animal that provided comfort during those first days of separation. It was probably the smell because by the third or fourth night, the stuffed animal no longer was of interest.

For my experiment, I covered Ollie’s eyes. He didn’t move his head from the edge of the table. Then without removing my hand from his eyes, I moved the plate. The nose went into overdrive. The nostrils flexed; he was taking in more air.

Was he imagining I had eaten that tantalizing bit of crust, or had he figured out that it was farther away?

After a few seconds I removed my hand from his eyes. He didn’t budge.

I then covered his nose. Ollie wriggled to get free. That was enough for me. His is a world of scratch and sniff.

His reward? Well, you can guess that. He finished my breakfast. I had the coffee.

dogs, Alexandra Horowitz, John Howell,

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