The smell of dogs helps them to know what time it is, because they detect that the aromas vary throughout the day
How do dogs know what time it is? Why does the dog seem to know exactly that it is time to walk or it is time to eat? Scientists reveal this mystery: dogs smell the time thanks to the movement of the air and the change of smells throughout the day . This article explains how dogs smell time and how they know that their human is about to come home .
Do dogs know what time it is? Yes, thanks to its snout!
How did you guess what time it is and when it is time to serve your snack? Most of the people who share life with these animals ask the same question. How does Lucas know when it’s time for the walk? How could Ada guess that her food will be served to her in two minutes? Is it that dogs can read the time?
Every day has a different smell and every hour is also characterized by a peculiar smell that dogs know how to identify.
Do dogs smell time?
In a matter of noses, dogs turn humans a thousand times. It is not strange that there are dogs that can smell cancer , that dogs smell – and rescue – people in disaster areas and that there are even dogs that smell black money . While humans are visual creatures, dogs are olfactory animals . ” Dogs are able to smell what time it is , because they capture the aroma molecules carried by the moving air, analyze them and place them in time .
The smell in a room changes throughout the day. The explanation is that air currents help to intensify or dampen certain aromas. How does this mechanism work? It’s simple: the smelly hot air tends to rise towards the walls and be replaced by the cooler air that was above. If we were able to visualize the movement of the air at home, we would be able to visualize the passage of time by how the smell varies over the hours.
Although dogs don’t see these air movements either, it turns out they do smell them. And not only that. The intensity of the odour varies over time. Thus, a strong odour will probably be a new, freshly produced odour; while a weaker scent will be older, from a few hours ago. In this way, the dogs smell the weather and can even anticipate the future. If a breeze of air brings in a new scent during the walk, the dog probably already knows what to expect once they cross the corner. And you will also know when your owner comes home before you open the door.
How do dogs smell the weather?
The canine snout hides the mystery of why dogs smell so good. Dogs have 220 million olfactory cells in their snouts , while humans only have five million.
And not only do they have more olfactory cells, but they are also more varied than those possessed by people, so the information that dogs capture is more complex: they smell more and distinguish a greater number of smells.
But it’s not all numbers when it comes to dog noses. The moisture also helps muzzle trap the odorous molecules more effectively and make them reach the brain before.
And there are still more. Dogs have what scientists call a ” stereo sense of smell ,” which bears similarities to how musical equipment works. Each of your nostrils works independently, giving you a better olfactory image of the world, almost in three dimensions. Thus, the dog smells what smell it is, what is its intensity and where it comes from. Hairy conclusion? Time is a matter of noses.