Dog sniffs- processing info? What info?
I’ve always seen it said that when dogs are sniffing, they are processing information. Are they really though?? what kind of information?? like it’s not possible they’re leaving each other messages right? are they telling each other that “hey just fyi, I don’t like cats” or what possible information could they be learning from another dogs pee??
In: Biology
Are you doubting the existence of pee-mail? There is good evidence that dogs can pick up indications of gender, whether the peer is spayed or neutered, age, health, stress level and diet from a good sniff of urine even if it’s dried off. These things are transmitted through the presence or absence of hormones. With five times more olfactory receptors than human beings and additional olfactory organs dogs are sensitive to pheromones in ways that we cannot even imagine.
The way dogs smell things is not how we smell things. To us, a smell just means “the thing this smells like is near”. We don’t get a lot of subtlety for things that aren’t food. Dog pee just smells like pee to us. Hunters can train themselves to recognize different pee smells, but humans can’t say, “This pee was definitely my neighbor’s dog”.
Dogs get that subtlety with almost everything they smell. They aren’t just smelling “another dog peed here”, if they’ve met that dog they recognize WHO peed there. Or if they don’t recognize the dog, they know HOW MANY different dogs have peed there. To some degree they also get a sense of how long ago each dog peed there. That can build a story in their head that helps them understand which dogs visit which areas when and who might be the “bosses” in their pecking order.
They also get interested in poop. To humans, poop is mostly poop. Again, you can sort of distinguish different animal poops from each other, but we don’t get a lot of subtlety. Dogs aren’t just getting information about who pooped, but what they ate to make that poop. If other dogs are pooping out good food, that means there must be good food available somewhere in the area. If the poop has bad food or indicates an upset stomach, that means bad food or water must be in the area.
They’re getting that kind of information when they sniff other dogs too. “Who are you? What’s your mark smell like? What have you been eating? Is it any good? Are you healthy?”
So to make a metaphor, when a dog sniffs a pole or hydrant, it’s more like they’re looking at older location-based social media like Foursquare. “Who was here? When were they here?” When they’re sniffing poop, it’s like they’re searching a food tag on Instagram. “What’s everyone been eating?” When they sniff another dog, it’s like they’re having a quick chat about what they’ve been doing.
A typical dog’s nose is 100,000 to 1 million times more sensitive than a human’s. Some dog’s noses are up to 10 million times more sensitive.
In visual terms, that’s like being able to fit an encyclopedia on a postage stamp. We have the ability to fit that much information in that space, but we need technology to do so in a meaningful way. If someone could see that well, they’d be able to see details you wouldn’t pick out, and you’d think they were looking at nothing interesting, just like it seems like dogs are smelling uninteresting things.
So, yes, they really can tell a lot of information just from smell.
How much they process that information is somewhat dubious, because they cannot tell us, because they cannot speak, but they definitely do access and use some of the information, because we can observe them smelling things and reacting to the smells.
Their urine messages inform other dogs that they exist, and their sex (lady dog or gentleman dog, and possible with a third category for dogs wanting to ask Summer Smith awkward questions about missing equipment), health and fitness. Maybe they can also smell if the other dog is a very close relative, but I’m not convinced of that.
It’s a bit like Facebook where people brag about living the good life, eating pretty-looking meals, having jogged 5 km, or show off how smart they are.
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