What Can Dogs Smell?
Dogs are the ultimate crime and life-saving partners. If you're not convinced, then read on to discover why dogs are better than any human to help fight crime and sense illnesses!
Dogs have incredible senses of smell that can detect everything from cancer to diabetes to seizures. This article is going to detail how these adorable animals are helping in a variety of ways while being your best friend all at the same time.
It’s all in the nose!
One of the most incredible things about dogs is their sense of smell. A dog's nose has 220 million odour receptors, while humans only have five to six million. This means that a dog can detect odours at concentrations 100 times lower than humans can!
The sense of smell is so powerful in dogs that they can even detect medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes, seizures. They are also able to identify what type of drugs the person may have taken or if there might be certain illnesses present from a variety of diseases like staph infections and Lyme disease.
So what can dogs sniff out?
Bomb Detection -
They don't actually smell bombs but instead explosives and other threats that could be considered dangerous.
As well as adapting their sense of smell to determine what they're looking for, dogs are also able to use behavioural cues from handlers when patrolling an area. The first official American bomb-sniffing dogs were used in North Africa during World War II to detect German mines. Incredible!
Drug Detection - Dogs can detect drugs, which is why you'll see them at airports to combat drug trafficking. They're able to sniff out certain scents that humans can't because of their sensitive noses! Whilst they're at it, they'll search for cash, weapons and explosives too.
Gas Detection - is there anything our humble friend can't do?! Dogs can detect gas and oil leaks. Dogs are trained to walk miles of gas pipes, searching for the smallest of leaks, saving companies large amounts of money!
Cancer Detection - Dogs can detect cancer cells in our body before we even start feeling sick! Of course, the faster cancer is detected, the easier it is to treat.
Diabetes and Seizures - Diabetic Alert Dogs are trained to detect when their owner's blood sugar level is too high or low.
How do they do this?
As we know, dogs have an incredible sense of smell so it is possible that they can smell insulin being released in the person's sweat, or detect ketones through their breath.
When this happens, a dog is trained to fetch a blood sugar testing kit or other emergency supplies.
Missing people - dogs can be trained to detect the scent of cadavers or decomposing bodies.
Evidence - dogs can be trained to detect guns and weapons, explosives, drugs and money.
Covid - it is now hoped that dogs can be trained to detect Covid-19, the virus which is responsible for a major human pandemic. In a proof-of-concept study, dogs identified positive samples with 96% accuracy!
Our Canine friends are the ultimate crime-fighting, life-saving partners!
There's no denying that our furry friends are truly incredible! The things they can do for us and we take them for granted in many ways. It might be time to start giving back a little more, don't you think? Maybe spending some quality time with your dog or volunteering at an animal shelter.