We already know that a dog's eyesight is not its most developed sense, but did you know that it can see thanks to its sense of smell? Dog owners looking for a product to neutralize the smell of animal urine often ask us this question about the canine sense of smell...
Why does my dog always urinate in the same place?
In a short video, cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz explains how a dog's overdeveloped sense of smell enables it to smell a scent, even if only a faint trace remains. She also explains how dogs can see things invisible to the human eye. Here are the facts that caught our attention!
Some interesting facts about the dog's sense of smell
- Dogs have over 300 million odor-capturing cells, while humans have only 5 million.
- The dog's nostrils breathe independently of each other, which helps it determine where the scent is coming from.
- The olfactory system takes up much more space in the dog's brain than in the human brain. Dogs can therefore remember a much wider variety of smells than humans.
- If a human can recognize the smell of a spoonful of sugar in a cup of coffee, then a dog could recognize the same smell in a million gallons of water - the equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools!
- Dogs can smell things we can't even see. Thanks to its vomeronasal organ, the dog is able to detect the hormones that all animals and humans naturally release. This is what helps the dog recognize potential companions and distinguish between friendly animals and predators.
- It's also the same organ that alerts the dog to our emotional state, and can even make him recognize a pregnant woman or a sick person.
So that's why your dog can still smell urine, even if it's been gone for weeks or months. Watch the video to learn more about a dog's sense of smell!
By the way, if you really want your dog to stop returning to that same spot, you'll need to use an odor neutralizer, like Urine Odor Neutralizer!
