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Dogs and Situational Awareness
I’ve learned to listen to their signals
So far in my life, I’ve had four dogs. Two were Rough Collies and two were German Shepherds. My current dog is a white GSD named Snowy.
At least with my own dogs, I’ve found that they have greater situational awareness than I do. So does my cat, probably.
If you think about it, it sorta makes sense. Animals are more in tune with nature, at least if they have access to the outdoors. They also often have better senses than we do.
My dog’s vision is probably not as good as mine. But his sense of smell is phenomenal.
People have about 6 million receptor sites in their nasal passages. Sounds impressive, right? Dogs have more than 100 million.
Their brains are also more focused on their sense of smell. The part of a dog’s brain that analyzes scents is about 40 times larger than that part of a human’s brain. It’s been estimated that they smell 1,000 to 10,000 times better than we do.
Of course, some breeds do it better than others.
Unsurprisingly, hounds top this listing of the top 10 sniffers in the canine world. Bloodhounds top the list.
A bloodhound has over 300 million scent receptors, more than any other breed. Their sense of smell is so reliable that…
