ChatterBank5 mins ago
Sense of Smell
7 Answers
This has annoyed me for quite some time and I keep forgetting to ask... Dogs (and many other animals) are known for their very keen sense of smell, far superior to humans. So why is it that when there is a particularly bad smell (poo, other dogs bottys, just general yucky things) does it not seem to bother them at all?
Cheers!
China
Cheers!
China
Answers
Best Answer
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.the sciency type answer is that we have a lot of emotional baggage attached to smells which is some of the reason (not all) that we find them nice or nasty. Dogs don't have the emotional baggage, their classification is different...edible/not, mateable/not, of my pack/not and so on. Dogs do find some smells unpleasant but they base it soley on the smell, not what the smell conveys unless they have learned a reaction, eg to the disinfectant used in the vet's waiting room. Even then I would guess that they don't actually dislike the smell but dislike what the smell means to them.
This is also part of the reason why dear little kiddies are happy to fingerpaint with the contents of a nappy....they don't yet have the "yuck" connotation installed
This is also part of the reason why dear little kiddies are happy to fingerpaint with the contents of a nappy....they don't yet have the "yuck" connotation installed
That also explains why dogs can be trained to sniff out drugs, weapons, money, and even things like cancerous growths in people or impending medical emergencies like epileptic fits (which give off a chemical reaction). They are rewarded for a given response and they then use the smell as a way of getting the reward.