b'Having 50 times more receptors, dogs happen next. senseofsmellisanywherefrom With their remarkable noses, dogs10,000 to 100,000 times more precise can detect subtle scents in concentra-than ours. tionsaslowasonepartpertrillion.AsPeterTyson,writingfor Figuratively,adogcouldsniffoutaNOVA, offers from an interview with dropofblooddispersedin20James Walker, former director of the Olympic-sized swimming pools worthSensory Research Institute at Florida of water. And most dogs could senseState University:howlongithasbeeninthewater.Lets suppose theyre just 10,000 Based on the strength of a smell, dogstimes better. If you make the analogy discernbetweenoldones,likefoot-to vision, what you and I can see at a prints, and new smells, like approach-third of a mile, a dog could see more ing danger. than3,000milesawayandstillsee AsAlexandraHorowitz,adog-as well. 1 cognition expert and author of Being aComparedtoournoses,dogs Dog: Following the Dog Into a World ofhave built-in nasal telescopes. Crucial Smell, commented, Dogs are living into this is a special organ, one we dont basicallyanolfactoryworld,andIhavetheJacobsonsorgan.This think they are able to track time withorgan helps dogs smell undetectable smells. 3odors,pheromonemolecules, Tonavigatetheseolfactoryenablingthemtoknowwhenother worlds, dogs smell to build somethingdogsarereadytomate,todiscern of a smell-infused worldviewsmellwhich dogs may be friendly, to help maps, as Horowitz calls them. Thesepuppies find their mother, 2 and sense smell maps are the culmination of athe chemicals humans produce when dogs capacity to sniff, helping thempregnant or even when were happy or judgewheretheyare,whotheyresad.with, and whether thats good news orThissecondolfactorysystem badnews.Withtheirnoses,dogsworkswiththeirreceptorstosend makesenseoftheworldandtheirunconscionable amounts of informa- place in it.tion to the part of a dogs brain detect-ed to process smell, which is roughly A neighborhood of stories40 times larger than in humans. I watch Lewie sniff differently now. AsAndwhendogsexhale,theair he buries his snout in unmown grass, Ileaves through the slits at the sides of wonder what hes learning. Perhaps itstheir noses, kicking up more odor to the rabbit that abandoned this hide-sniffwithoutinterruptingtheir out. Or the residue of a neighborhoodbreathing.dogs territorial rinse. Lewiesnose,itseems,islike As I watch him wiggle his nose, ISteinbecks mastery of metaphor. In a consider how he uses his sense of smellword: impressive. thesamewaywetakeinstories,whetherwrittenorverbal,topieceSmelling time and building maps together our surroundings, to catch upDogs do more than smell when they withfriends,tolearnwhoisfororsniff. They detect and discern, evalu- against us, and to find our way home.ate and assess. They understand what ThankstoSteinbeck,Iseeourwehumanscallthepastandthey neighborhood the way it seems Lewieevenseemtoknowwhatsgoingto smells it: full of stories. U1 Tyson, Peter. Dogs Dazzling Sense of Smell. PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, October 4, 2012.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/dogs-sense-of-smell/2 Stancu, Dragos. Superpowered Snouts: All about Dogs Sense of Smell. ElleVet Sciences, April 15, 2022.https://www.ellevetsciences.com/pet-care/superpowered-snouts-all-about-dogs-sense-of-smell/#h3 Michaeleen Doucleff, Can Dogs Smell Time? Just Ask Donut the Dog, NPR (NPR, December 22, 2022).https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/22/1139781319/can-dogs-smell-time-just-ask-donut-the-dogwww.TheNewBarker.com TTHHEE N NEEWW B BAARRKKEERR 25'