You Smell Great!

When I watch my dogs in the park, the differences between them is striking, especially when it comes to their senses of smell. Most often, Sam and Phoebe will pause mid-run, lift their noses to the air and take in a whiff of some exotic animal who has recently been in the neighborhood. They literally sniff the air although they often sniff bushes, twigs and the ground. Amos, on the other hand, is all about sight. He can see the white of a deer's tail long before the other two and while they are busy running circles picking up the scent, he takes off in a bee-line for the beast.

Alexandra Horowitz, in her new book, Inside of a Dog, (reviewed here in the New York Times Book Review), explains these cognitive behaviors and takes us on a tour of the world according to a dog's senses. It is fascinating and helps explain a lot of behaviors we often interpret as being more "human-like" than they actually are. In many ways, everything in a dog's world is related to sight or smell.

To begin with, dogs do not have to exhale before they inhale again as we do. They can actually take in more air while they are still inhaling. In this way, reviewer Cathleen Schine points out, "dogs not only hold more scent in at once than we can, but can also continuously refresh what they smell without interruption..." Dogs interpret their world through smell. As Horowitz writes: "Smell tells time. . .Odors are less strong over time, so strength indicates newness; weakness, age. The future is smelled on the breeze that brings air from the place you're headed."

I love that description because it is the essence of dog-ness--very different from the essence of what humans think dogs think. My father has long contended that dogs don't tell time--that they don't know how long you are gone when you leave them, but Horowitz reveals that dogs do indeed tell time--it is just based on smells associated with where they are and where they are going, regardless of whether or not these smells include you.

As for Amos' uncanny sight, well Horowitz explains that dogs with long noses have what is known as a visual streak: a cluster of photo-receptors along a horizontal band across the middle of the eye. These dogs "have better panoramic, high-quality vision, and much more peripheral vision than humans."

If you are interested in truly understanding the world from your dog's perspective this sounds like a great read. And for those who favor the owner as member of the pack mentality, Horowitz notes that "dogs seem to learn from each other not by punishing each other but by observing each other."