Why do dogs have a good sense of smell?
Dogs need their good sense of smell and hearing because their eyesight is not as good as a human’s. The minute you open the door, you know someone is baking cookies. Your nose tells you that they are chocolate chip. But how does your nose know? The aroma of the cookies actually reaches your nose as tiny chemical particles called molecules. Inside your nose are special receptors-5 million of them-that react to the chemical particles and send a message to your brain. Some scientists think that the molecules for each scent are a different shape and that they must fit into the right receptors to be analyzed correctly Once this happens, your brain then recognizes the odor: OH BOY! CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES! A dog’s nose works the same way, but its 200 million or so scent receptors make it much more sensitive than the human nose. The longer the dog’s nose, the more scent receptors it has and the better it can smell. Dogs with the best sense of smell, such as beagles and bloodhounds, sometimes c
