A dog’s nose dominates its brain. In fact, a dog relies on its sense of smell to understand its world, in the same way as people depend on their sight. Your dog interprets as much information as you do. However, it does much of this by smelling something, not by staring at it.
A dog’s brain is also specialized for identifying scents. The percentage of the dog’s brain that is devoted to analysing smells is actually 40 times larger than that of a human! It’s been estimated that dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than nasally challenged humans can.
Scent-Detecting Cells in People and Dog Breeds
| Species | Number of Scent Receptors |
| Humans | 5 million |
| Dachshund | 125 million |
| Fox Terrier | 147 million |
| Beagle | 225 million |
| German Shepherd | 225 million |
| Bloodhound | 300 million |
Did you know that your dog’s nose has a pattern of ridges and dimples that make up a nose print!
They are as individual as a human fingerprint. Some companies register nose prints as a way of identifying dogs. It is now being used by kennel clubs around the world.