Yes, Your Dogs Can Actually Smell The Shape And Size Of Things!

Yes, Your Dogs Can Actually Smell The Shape And Size Of Things!

The concept of smell seems pretty simple, even when it comes to the powerful noses of dogs. They just pick up scents more strongly, right? Well, there’s more to it than that, according to recent research. Canine animals may be able to “smell” the shapes and sizes of items!

Researchers with the Friedrich Schiller University and scientists with the Max Planck Institute discovered that dogs attach mental images to objects when following scent trails. Their findings were published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

To conduct the study, researchers took dogs in two groups. The first group had 25 dogs trained for police operations. The other group had 23 pet dogs from households that were untrained in such manners. Dogs from all groups were then showed two different toys. One had a scent trail that led to it. The other had a scent trail that didn’t match it.

Dogs seemed visibly shocked when they noticed that the incorrectly scented toy lay at the end of a scent trail. This suggests that they have a visual image of the items they are trying to trace! However, it’s worth noting that after a few times of this, the dogs stopped being surprised – probably because they had learned a particular scent would always lead to the wrong toy.

Feature Image Source: Pixabay

Back to blog