Dog’s Extraordinary Sense of Smell micro-lesson

This lesson is about the Animal Superpower: Dog’s Extraordinary Sense of Smell. Scientists estimate that dogs have 220 million olfactory receptors in their noses compared with the five million in humans. With this extraordinary sense, dogs have been found to be able to detect certain types of cancer from smell alone. This was first studied because dogs would sniff or nudge at parts of their owner's body that turned out to have cancer cells or tumors. They have also been trained to help people with diabetes. These diabetes service dogs sense and alert their owner when they have low blood sugar level at a very early stage, and the dog lets their owner know so the owner can control it before it becomes a problem. Dogs have even been able to detect narcolepsy which is when people fall asleep unexpectedly. Dog’s nostrils can move which tells the dog the direction the scent is coming from. Smells stay inside the nostrils and each additional sniff makes the scent even stronger. All this makes dogs sense of smell truly extraordinary.