The wonders of a dog's nose.

German Shepherd

Image source: Flickr /Magnus Brath

Bloodhound.

Image source :Flickr/sally9258

There's a reason why dogs can sniff out various scents.They can sniff out cancer,diseases, drugs,escaped convicts, bombs, carcasses, and so many other things.
As such , they are engaged in various services such as search and rescue , bomb sniffing, drug detection, cancer detection etc. The sense of smell of a human is not anywhere as strong as that of our little furry baby.No matter the size of his nose, your cute ball of fur can sniff out thousands of scents. The ability to sniff out scents varies according to the breed.Some breeds have more smell receptor cells than others. Research has shown that long nosed breeds are better sniffers than short nosed breeds. The bloodhound breed with over 300 million olfactory receptors,(compared to our 5 million olfactory receptors) tops the list of best sniffer dogs.
Lynn Hayner wrote an article on Dogchannel about our cute doggy's nose.According to Hayner, "Scientists guess the dog’s sense of smell is somewhere between 10,000 to 100,000 times more acute than ours.... While all dog breeds smell better than humans (love that double entendre!), the dog breeds with short noses, such the Pug, have less space for scent detecting cells. For example, the Dachshund has around 125 million smell receptor cells, while a Fox terrier has 147 million and the German Shepherd has about 225 million. "

Click on this link to read the full article.

Download this pdf to learn more about the anatomy and physiology of the dog.