Fast Facts: How Dogs’ Noses Work
Search and rescue missions. Security screenings. Disease detection. The good boys and girls (aka working dogs) are in airports, at natural disaster sites, and hospitals around the world performing important jobs.
They can do this because unlike other animals, dogs use their sense of smell to understand the world around them.
“What the dog sees and knows comes through his nose,” according to Alexandra Horowitz, a Barnard College professor, cited by the American Kennel Club. “The information that every dog—the tracking dog, of course, but also the dog lying next to you, snoring on the couch—has about the world based on smell is unthinkably rich.”
Source: “Why Does My Dog Sniff Everything?,” American Kennel Club, 25 July 2023
