This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.
McGreevy mentioned various dog sensory capacity stats throughout his seminar. This is only a brief post, but still interesting!
Sense of Smell
Dogs sense of smell is 100 times stronger than people’s. As dog owners and trainers, we need to understand how ‘smelly’ the world is for dogs, and what that means for dogs when they’re trying to concentrate on us!
Smelling is a key skill for dogs, but there is no decent way to test the olfaction of dogs. McGreevy suggested that cognitive function may be linked to sense of smell.
Hearing
Dogs have better hearing than us. In particular, they can hear stuff that is higher in frequency than humans can hear. The distance between a dog’s ears predict how much they can hear (but I don’t remember the equation, sorry!).
Dog Sight
Dogs are quite attuned to picking up visual signals. Different dog breeds have different retinas, and so see in different ways.
Of course, there is a lot more that could be said about dog senses, but these are just what McGreevy mentioned over the course of the seminar.
This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.
Hi again.
Just passing by to greet you a Happy New Year.
I just wanted to add that a dog’s sense of sight isn’t as visually enhanced as that of a human’s. However, their eyes are situated in their head in such a way that they have a greater peripheral vision than humans do.
Huggies and Cheese,
Haopee
Apparently, those breeds with eyes close together (e.g. pugs) have better sight than those with extensive peripheral vision… I’m not sure if McGreevy was saying that or if I’ve picked it up from elsewhere… Hope you have a great new years, too, Haopee.
You too!!!
I’m pretty confused. Who’s Tegan? Are you Tegan? Or is Tegan a dog or a partner? Forgive me for my laziness in searching for it in your blog, LOL.
As for dogs with closer eyes, yes, they probably do. But since dogs have large rigid pupils, they have a harder time adjusting it to the light than humans do.
I think I’ll further research on that and get back to you.
Huggies and Cheese,
Haopee
Tegan and Leema are the same person.
I’d be interested to know what you find once you do some more research.
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