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Dog’s Senses:

Whether it’s the sense of smell, sight, touch, or hearing, your dog has a keen insight.  After all, the dog’s senses are incredibly sharp.

What you may not know is the dog’s sense of smell is the most developed out of all of its senses. It relies on its senses to determine its environment, nearby people, not to mention pets.  In fact, the dog’s sense of smell is used to determine their owners (translation: you!).  They rely on their sense of smell to identify their owner, as well as home and environment.

The dog’s sense of sight is rather sophisticated.  In particular, as it relates to night vision they still have a strong sense of sight.  It’s quite amazing actually, dogs are capable of noticing movement in their vicinity due to their strong sense of sight since the visual range is 180 degrees. 

Interestingly enough, as it relates to the dog’s sense of sight, they can see further around them but aren’t able to always identify what they actually see; hence, the importance on relying on their strong sense of smell.  Since their sense of hearing is also quite strong, they rely on sounds when they can’t identify what they see in the distance.

Hearing is also strong as it relates to a dog’s senses since they can determine sound in approximately sixth one-hundredths of a second.  Their impressive sense of hearing makes it one primary reason why some dogs are terrific guard dogs.  Your dog can identify sounds from all around to identify where the sound generated from.  Combined with the sense of smell, the sense of hearing is a one-two punch.  They can identify prey, predators, as well as the origin based on where the sound came from.

The dog’s sense of touch is quite keen since their bodies are covered with sensitive nerve endings; your dog may be sensitive and enjoy it when you pet him. 

The dog’s sense of taste apparently is weak so they rely on their sense of smell to determine if they like their food. 

At The Dog Bowl, nothing is more important than your pets’ health and well being.  For more information about your dog’s senses ask your local vet or click through more of The Dog Bowl's informational tabs (tabs along the left side on the home page).