Being a Dog * Following the dog into a World of Smell

I am a dog owner – Charlie our family Beagle is about 8 years old and every morning we go for a walk before writing my post. So today as I celebrates smells this ones is for You: Charlie 

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What makes a beagle’s sense of smell so good? Humans have an estimated five million scent receptors (cells used for smelling) concentrated in a relatively small area at the back of the nose. By comparison, beagles have an estimated 220 millionscent receptors.

 

 

 

 

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book link

From the #1 bestselling author of Inside of a Dog—“an incredible journey into the olfactory world of man’s best friend” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Alexandra Horowitz’s follow-up to her New York Timesbestseller explains how dogs experience the world through their most spectacular organ—the nose.

In her “fascinating book…Horowitz combines the expertise of a scientist with an easy, lively writing style” (The New York Times Book Review) as she imagines what it is like to be a dog. Guided by her own dogs, Finnegan and Upton, Horowitz sets off on a quest through the cutting-edge science behind the olfactory abilities of the dog. In addition to speaking to cognitive researchers and smell experts, Horowitz visits detection-dog trainers and training centers; she meets researchers working with dogs to detect cancerous cells and anticipate epileptic seizure or diabetic shock; and she even attempts to smell-train her own nose.

As we come to understand how rich, complex, and exciting the world around us is to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have broken free of their human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, for however fleetingly, been a dog. And, as The Boston Globe says about Being a Dog, “becoming more doglike, not surprisingly, can make anyone’s life a little more vivid.”

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