A Small Dog

The Nose Knows, Part II

Posted on 30. Dec, 2008 by Jeff K. in Small Dog Behavior

This article is a continuation of the “Nose Knows, Part I,” which can you find here.

My dog Kelsey is a genius and your dog is too. Kelsey is not a national champion in obedience trials. She is not an esteemed service dog. I cannot even get her to sit reliably on command, but she is a genius nonetheless, and so is yours. Look at your dog lying in the corner. (Or maybe your dog is pawing your leg as you sit reading this, as if to say “Hey, pay attention. This guy is telling you what I have been trying to say for years.”) Pure genius! Don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you.

Let’s begin with a definition of the word “genius.” I looked the word up in several dictionaries. Here are a few excerpts.

From The American Heritage Dictionary, 2006:
“Extraordinary intellectual and creative power.”
“A person of extraordinary intellect and talent.”

From Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary, 2006 :
“1 : extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity”
“2 : a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority; specifically : a person with a very high intelligence quotient”

Wait a minute. I might have been wrong. According to these definitions, only humans can be geniuses. If I were to walk up to someone on the street and say “Give me an example of a genius,” the likely answer would be “Albert Einstein,” or “Stephen Hawking,” both icons in American culture. We humans tend to think of genius in—surprise—human terms.

Then there’s this from Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1996:
“Genius implies high and peculiar gifts of nature, impelling the mind to certain favorite kinds of mental effort, and producing new combinations of ideas, imagery, etc.”

The question is, does your dog have a high and peculiar gift of nature? Does he or she engage in certain favorite kinds of mental effort that may produce new combinations of ideas, imagery, etc? Yes, yes and yes. Here is how.

“High and peculiar gift of nature.”

1. Your dog’s nose has around 220 million scent receptors in his nose. We humans have around 5 million.
2. The total surface area of a dog’s nasal membrane is much larger than the total surface area of a dog’s body!
3. This surface area of the nasal membrane is about 14 times larger than our own nasal membrane.
4. Most dogs can detect and identify scents that are so dilute, even our most sensitive scientific instruments cannot detect them. In one study conducted by the U.S. Army in 1985, dogs were tested for their ability to follow a scent. The Army laid scent tracks across a field, then deep-plowed the soil, covered the area with gasoline and set the field ablaze. Then they sprinkled the area with live and spent ammunition. They had the people laying the scent track continue the track to a river’s edge. The scent was carried underwater by scuba divers who emerged on the far shore some distance downstream. Nothing consistently stopped the test dogs from following the scent.
5. When a dog takes an interest in a scent, he has some very sophisticated machinery working in his favor. First, his nostrils are movable, making it easier for him to determine the direction of the scent. Second, a dog’s sniff action is unique. Dogs sniff in patterns, or “trains,” with a series of 3 to 7 sniffs per train. Third, when a dog inhales a scent, that odor does not wash in and wash out with each breath. Dogs have a structure in their nose called the subethmoidal shelf, something we do not possess. When a dog sniffs in an odor, some air lingers above the shelf even as the dog continues to breathe in and out. This allows scent molecules to build and concentrate above the shelf where they can be interpreted by sensory cells. Even the dog’s nasal passages are more complex and folded than a human’s. They are designed to concentrate odor molecules on scent receptor cells. The molecules also stick better to a dog’s nasal passages because a dog’s nose produces far more mucus than a human’s nose.
6. Whereas you and I may smell a bowl of minestrone soup and think: “minestrone,” a dog detects something far different. A dog may smell within the soup: pasta; beef, and all its components; celery; carrots; white beans; cabbage; potatoes; oregano; thyme; salt; pepper; tomatoes; tomato paste; olive oil; pollutants and additives in the pot water; the pot’s hot metal; and, the slight vaporization of the pot’s non-stick coating. (I probably had your appetite going until those last 3 items.) In his book, The Dog’s Mind, Dr. Bruce Ogle, D.V.M, says an odor metaphorically plays music in a dog’s nose, each scent molecule a separate note in a beautiful melody.

“Engage in certain favorite kinds of mental effort that may produce new combinations of ideas, imagery, etc.”

1. A dog has direct nerve connections from the nose to areas of the brain which control eating, drinking and sexual behavior.
2. It has be theorized, and partially proven that dogs may be able to determine human moods through scent.
3. One team of researchers found that dogs will sniff different parts of a child’s body based upon the child’s behavior at the time of the encounter. In the study, dogs sniffed a child’s head when the child behaved in an appeasing manner. When the child behaved in a threatening manner, the dogs sniffed the child’s upper arms and legs. When the child did nothing apparent, the dogs would sniff the body and lower limbs. The researchers concluded that the dogs were connecting with human social odors that “enables the dog to decode and integrate human behaviours and perhaps emotional states and cognitive processes which underlie them.”

When we humans consider the process of thinking or problem solving, we tend to do so in human terms. Human thoughts, and the formation of the words and symbols that make up those thoughts, are uniquely human. Einstein could manipulate mathematical symbols in his mind and produce new and unique formulae and theories. Mozart could order and re-order musical symbols that provoke our imagination and stirs our emotions. What went on in Einstein’s head as he worked towards his theory of relativity? Will we ever know how Mozart’s brain ordered music in wonderful symphonies? In the overall scheme of things, does it even matter? Simply because we do not understand the inner workings of the brains of geniuses does not mean we discount the results of their work. But what about dogs? It turns out, dogs have a highly sophisticated method of detecting and interpreting their own symbols. They have a language of scent that speaks to them in ways that are alien and nearly incomprehensible to us. We may not fully understand how dogs do what they do, but there is no getting around the fact that dogs do something with scent that is far beyond and above human capability. That’s genius.

Sources for this article:
The Dog’s Mind, Bruce Fogle, D.V.M., Wiley Publishing, 1990.
Dictionary references were as cited in the article.

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Tags: dog senses, Kelsey, sense of smell