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5 Ways
Your Dog Senses The World
Differently From You
Do dogs
sense things differently than humans do?
Well, yes and no. Dogs share the same
basic senses with us: they see, hear,
touch, smell and taste. But the level of
their senses is different – an important
distinction when you’re trying to figure
out just what your dog is doing.
Sight
It was
once thought that dogs were “color-blind”
– only able to see shades of black and
white with some grey, but scientific
studies have found that’s not true.
Dogs can see in color
– ranging from blues and greens to greys
and crèmes, and of course, black and
white. It’s been estimated that humans can
distinguish somewhere between 7 and 10
million different colors. (We don’t
even have names for that many colors!)
Picture courtesy of Dr. P’s site:
http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/dog.htm
But dogs
have it all over humans in detecting
motion – that’s one reason they can detect
a cat up a tree at a much greater distance
than you can! And their night vision is
typically better than ours – dogs have an
additional reflective layer in the eye
called the tapetum lucidum,
which reflects light back into the
receptor cells of the eye, which not only
increases their night vision, but gives
them that spooky appearance of eyes
glowing in the dark.
Hearing
When your
dog is barking like crazy in the middle of
the night, don’t just assume he’s lonely
and wants you to get up and keep him
company. He may be listening to something
that you can’t hear, that’s extremely
upsetting to him – like a burglar breaking
in your basement window.
Dogs can
hear at four times the distance humans can
– that means
you might hear something from a 100 yards
away your dog could hear from a quarter of
a mile away. Their ears are also
better designed to gather more of the
available sound wave – they have 15
different muscles that move their ears in
all directions, plus they can move one ear
at a time – and independently of the other
to absorb even more information!
Touch
Dogs also
have a well-developed sense of touch,
surprising perhaps under all that fur,
although this sense is much less
sophisticated than a human’s. Puppies are
born with sensory receptors in their faces
so they can find mama even if they’re
separated before they open their eyes.
But they also can sense touch all over
their bodies, just as humans can. One
reason your dog flops down on the couch
next to you and tries to snuggle up on a
hot day (or any other day for that
matter!) is because he likes the comfort
of feeling that you’re right there!
Smell
We can’t
even come close to our dog’s
ability to smell things.
It’s been estimated that a dog’s sense
of smell is 100,000 times more powerful
than a human’s. Scientists
think that humans have about 40 million
olfactory receptors, versus 2
billion for your dog! That’s
part of the reason dogs make such good
trackers, and can trace scents across all
sorts of distractions – like across
roadways or through dense woods.
Dogs also
use their sense of smell as a
communications tool – when they’re running
around the park with their nose to the
ground, sniffing everything in sight,
they’re actually reading the calling cards
of everyone – dogs, humans, cats,
squirrels, and anyone or anything else,
that has been there before him. Which is
why he may not pay attention to you when
you first get to the park – he’s trying to
see if any of his buddies have been there
before him!
Taste
Just as
with humans, taste is closely linked to
the sense of smell – the main difference
is humans won’t eat something that smells
bad; while dogs are the opposite – the
smellier the better. Dogs will gulp first
and ask questions later.
While
humans many times won’t eat something that
doesn’t look appealing, let alone
doesn’t smell good, dogs are more
concerned with smell, than taste. They
frequently gobble down food before they
have time to chew it, let alone taste it.
But that’s ok – it’s why when we clean out
our refrigerators our dogs think it’s time
for treats.
So the
next time your dog engages in some
puzzling behavior, whether it’s barking
for no reason, or ignoring you at the
park, he might not be trying to irritate
you – he’s just responding to a different
level of senses than you are. Take a
moment to look around and try and figure
out what’s triggering his behavior before
you get mad. Your dog could be
trying to tell you something! |
