Every species has its own way of perceiving the world and experiencing life – Canines included. As pups fully grow and develop, they adapt to their environment and develop skills to help them in life. Your dog views the world and society in its own unique way, as well as humans specifically. Opening the door to a special relationship that gets better with time. They use various parts of their body to send out and gather information, such as their eyes, ears, paws, tail position, and all sorts of other various postures that exist in the language of the dog.
Eyes
Like humans, dogs use to turn rays of light into images that their brains can interpret. With modern technology, it has become possible to figure out exactly how dogs see and what contributes to it. It mainly revolves around their retina. Canine retinas contain rods that account for seeing and cones that are responsible for color. Due to the lack of an abundance of cones, dogs see limited colors. Dogs’ retinas can see mostly two colors, blue-violet and yellow. The image below highlights the difference in the variety of colors dogs are able to distinguish:
Having more rods allows them to see better in the dark which was a critical survival skill in ancient history. Your dog’s eyes are angled at 20 degrees, as opposed to straight-forward like human eyes. Canines have a problem with looking straight ahead due to their nose being in the way; so they prefer to use peripheral vision. To avoid depending on distinguishing colors, your dog often tries to focus on brightness and position instead.
Nose
The olfactory system is responsible for the way we can smell, and dogs have an impressive advantage compared to our human scent. Humans have about six million olfactory receptors in our noses, and dogs have a whopping six hundred million. Their olfactory system is 40 times larger, allowing them to differentiate between individual smells instead of taking in the entire smell of a surrounding. Dogs store this information to recognize other people, dogs, and places based on scent. This allows dogs who have lost their vision to still navigate, knowing who and what they are around.
With only a single sniff, your dog emits amino acids that communicate gender and basic personality; this is why dogs sniff their backends instead of shaking paws. This happens through Jacobsen’s organ, the second olfactory complex located inside the nose. This system has nerves linked directly to the brain and operates differently than the nose by detecting “non-smellable” odors (Buzhardt). Surprisingly, your dog’s nose operates the best when it is damp. The wet outer nose and nasal cavity filled with moisture can actually trap scent particles easier than a dry nose/nasal cavity. This is why you may see your dog lick their nose sometimes!
Ears
After the smell, a dog’s second most powerful relative sense is hearing. Humans can only hear up to 23,000 Hz, whereas dogs up to 65,000 Hz. They can also hear sounds up to 15 decibels softer than us. While distinguishing different pitches and tones within sound. Having a large impact on their brain’s ability to make sense around them and explaining the sensitivity to an approaching mail carrier even though they’re inside… Dog’s ear canals are shaped differently than humans resembling an L shape. This shape transfers sound to the eardrum faster than ours do. There are 18 muscles that control the flapping of your dog’s ears. The muscles allow the ears to tilt and rotate, in order to pick up more sound. These muscles account for all the times you saw your dog perk their ears to hear something, or even relax them! Ears can indicate mood and help us anticipate behavior before it happens. Dogs with larger ears that are upright can listen better and absorb sound faster than dogs with smaller and floppy ears.
Touch
Although we do not usually think of paws as hands, they are in control of the dog’s touch. Dog paws are made up of connective, fat, tissue, and tough skin. The more dogs use their paw pads on different terrain the tougher they become, making them less sensitive to hot, cold, and hard surfaces. Dogs use the feeling of the terrain below them to help determine their location and environment. This is one of the many reasons blind, or older dogs can still determine their course and successfully walk through familiar and old environments.
Size
While all dog breeds share similar anatomy when it comes to their senses, the size of their body does affect the way they see an environment. Studies done at the University of Sussex determined that dogs have the cognitive ability to use different senses to determine the status of the other canines. They can determine the size and dominance of other canines using hearing, scent, and visual cues. This is a common reason for Small Dog Syndrome; small pups in a big world, misbehave because they are fearful about their surroundings due to their size. This typically leads to misbehavior such as lunging, growling, snapping, and jumping. During these actions, the small dog believes they are much bigger than they actually are.
Closing Remarks
Your dog uses many of the same body parts as humans to perceive its environment. It uses sight, hearing, touch, and smell to identify its current physical environment and have awareness. Even though your dog may view the world differently than you, it is important to acknowledge and appreciate their own perspective in cultivating this lifelong relationship!
