As anyone with even a little bit of sense knows, dogs are simply incredible! They aren’t called ‘a man’s best friend’ for nothing. Their compassion, super abilities, and those puppy dog eyes – they invented the look you know – make them the best companion for anyone. Would it surprise you to know that they are even more amazing than previously thought? Scientists have discovered that dog noses have an ability that we didn’t know about; they can detect body heat.
Dogs Have Super Noses
It is extraordinary that dogs can still surprise us and with a comic-book likeability that we didn’t even know about.
Scientists at the University of Colorado were performing research on canine sniffing abilities when they learned that dogs, and other canines, can detect heat being radiated from animals and humans. This also explains why dogs who have lost their sense of hearing and sight are still able to find their way around.
How Dog Noses Sense Heat
We already knew some facts about dog noses, they can detect a dynamic range of smells over long distances. They can do that because, unlike most mammals, dog noses are moist, full of nerves, and colder.
Researchers worked with 13 different dog breeds in their research and subsequent experiments. After a bit of training, they learned that when dogs don’t see or smell an item, they can detect heat coming off of it.
Scientists monitored dogs’ brains in their experiments, and it showed that the area that received feedback from their nose was utilized when dogs sensed heat. It is believed that this fantastic sense was inherited by dogs from wolves that use it for hunting in cold weather.
Amazing Dog Nose Facts
Dogs just keep getting better and better, and we don’t just mean their abilities. If you didn’t know about other facts about dog noses, here is some refreshing information:
- Dogs can breathe in and out at the same time. We mere humans can only do one of those things at one time but this ability of dogs is called circular breathing and hastens the air circulation in their body.
- Dog noses are designed to detect a myriad of smells. There is a tissue inside the dog nose that splits the air into 2 streams. One is for breathing, and one is for smelling the scents coming in.
- There is a whole lab inside the nose of a dog. Consider this, humans have 6 million receptors in our noses to detect scents. Dogs have 300 million. This is why they can pinpoint smells and follow them from far away distances.
