Can Your Dog Really Smell Other Dogs on You?
Turns out our instincts as pets parents are correct: Yes, our dogs can smell other dogs on us. Dogs can detect not only new and unfamiliar smells, but also the pheromones of other canines (which are present in skin, fur, fecal matter and urine). So, the next time you come home after playing with a dog, know that your dog’s onto you. Not only can your dog tell if you’ve been cheating on them, their noses can also discover a lot of information about the dog you were playing with—including their sex, if the dog has given birth, what the dog had recently eaten, where they had recently been, and even what kind of mood they were in when you saw them.
Signs Your Dog Smells Another Dog on You
Just because a dog can smell another dog on you, doesn’t mean they have. Here are some telltale signs your pup has picked up on the scent:
A dog’s sense of smell is said to be anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 more powerful than our own (it’s believed that dogs have between 125-300 million scent glands). In a way, though, comparing a dog’s sense of smell with our own doesn’t make a lot of sense. The canine sense of smell gathers so much more information than ours that its essentially an entirely different kind of sense—it’s more like our vision and our sense of smell combined. Sometimes it takes your dog several attempts to sniff out all the information they’re looking for, which explains why they seem to smell you for a lot longer after you’ve been around other canines.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
The dogs prevailed! The nine subjects successfully identified “dog” from “non-dog” faces. Some dogs, like Babel, Bag, Cyane and Vodka, were able to do so quite quickly, taking few sessions to approach the required 10-out-of-12 dog s. Other dogs, like Bahia and Cusco, were slower on the pickup and took more sessions to identify “dog” from “non-dog” (dog subjects needed anywhere from 2 to 13 sessions to meet criteria). This is not to say, of course, that Bahia and Cusco dont know a dog when they see one. The researchers highlight that a number of factors — like dog personality, learning styles and strategies, and motivation — can affect dog behavior and performance, particularly when it comes to this type of task.
But catch any part of a tail, and I know Im in. You could say my motto is, “dog, until proven otherwise.”
Julie Hecht is a Ph.D. student studying dog behavior and writes the Dog Spies blog at ScientificAmerican.com. Follow Julie Hecht on Twitter
Even so, the study suggests that despite their wackadoodle appearances, dogs can identify other dogs by sight alone. Dogs seem to have a sense of who (or at least which s) falls in the category of “dog” and who does not. Exactly which features dogs use when tuning into “dog,” though, the current study cant say. They offer that as a natural next step in the research.
How do dogs “see” with their noses? – Alexandra Horowitz
Our dogs can sometimes act very weird. We love giving our dogs some human characteristics, and in some cases, we overdo it. However, our dogs have feelings. They feel love; they can be scared, disgusted, surprised, and according to some studies – jealous. We noticed that our dogs acted strangely after we came home smelling like other dogs. It seemed like our dog was getting jealous or even a bit mad. Naturally, we started to wonder, can dogs get mad if they smell other dogs on you? Or is it something we were reading too much into and misunderstood? Well, here’s what you should know.