It’s hard being a dog. Almost as hard as being a dog owner when it’s 13 degrees outside at 5 a.m. and you’re out there, in the dark, trying to get your chocolate lab to focus on his “business.” It's all the fault of the nose, that all-important, amazingly powerful canine contraption that is the guiding force in every pup's life.
A dog's sense of smell is at least 10,000 times stronger than ours, possibly 100,000 times stronger, according to the PBS series NOVA. Think about that for a second. The canine schnoz is not just a lot more sensitive than ours, it's tens of thousands of times more sensitive.
When Aquinnah (aka, Quinn, Quinnie, The Quinn Man, etc.) and I headed out into the yard before dawn the other day, I smelled, well, nothing at all.
Not so, Quinnie.
He stopped to sniff one of the woodpiles.
Eventually, I pulled him away. Nose to the ground, he proceeded to the next station.
He stopped to sniff a corner of the house.
Eventually, I pulled him away. Nose to the ground, he proceeded to the next station.
He stopped to sniff a cat’s paw print in the snow.
Eventually, I pulled him away. Nose to the ground, he proceeded to the next station.
He stopped to sniff what I assume was a subatomic particle in the driveway.
Eventually, I pulled him away. Nose to the ground, he proceeded to the next station.
Then, as yours truly grew ever colder, he finally got down to work.
If humans operated this way, motorists would come to a complete stop at every intersection and then just sit there for five minutes or more. Come to think of it, many of them do that already. But it's only because they’re texting.
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