You already knew that dogs have an incredible sense of smell. They have about 25 times as many smell receptors as humans, and they can sense odors at one-hundred-millionth the concentration that would be required by humans. Click here for an interesting summary of doggie olfactory capabilities.
The University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology uses dogs to sniff out “doo-doo” (scat) from different species of animals — and specific animals within a species — in order to track their movements and, in some cases, solve some important mysteries.
For example, the researchers were able to determine the effects on whales of some Navy sonar testing by having the dogs collect the whales’ scat before and after the testing. They were able to learn about any changes by examining different hormone levels in the scat.
Head researcher, Samuel Wasser, says the dogs are a little hyper compared to other dogs. They are highly motivated, on their scat searches, to find something useful, because they love their reward — 90 seconds of play with the other scat-finding dogs.
In California, the dogs were able to distinguish between 1,300 kit fox scat samples. In Africa, the dogs were able, with the help of DNA samples, to find the elephants from which ivory tusks had been poached. In the Pacific Northwest, two of the dogs are helping scientists track levels of PCB (a banned industrial substance) in the scat of Orca Whales.
So, next time you walk outside with your dog, don’t be surprised if it sticks its nose up in the air and checks out the smells for a few seconds. After all, it can smell things in microscopic concentrations (almost one billionth) compared to what you would need to detect an odor.
Tags: dog intelligence
