PART 2: Dog Senses of Hearing and Smell

(PHOTO: Franklin thinking, "I Wish Daddy Tom would stop running that vacuum cleaner!")
As I continue to thoroughly enjoy reading "How Dogs think" by Stanley Coren (I recommend it), here are some other things that struck me as very interesting:
A DOG'S HEARING - They can hear what people hear, in addition to sounds at higher pitches.
* HIGH PITCHES HURT - Vacuum cleaners emit high pitched sounds that hurt a dog's ears, so they're not afraid of the vacuum cleaner, it annoys their ears!
* LOUD NOISES HURT - Loud Noises hurt a dog's hearing - hunting dogs suffer from hearing loss quickly because their ears go unprotected, while the hunter has ear protection on (when firing his gun). Don't blast your car stereo with your dog inside, either!
* SPOTTED DOGS AND HEARING LOSS - Piebald or spotted dogs have a higher percentage of hearing loss. A large percentage of Dalmations with blue eyes tend to have hearing loss in at least one ear by maturity. Other dogs also have spotted skin and are also piebald, like dachshunds.
* PERSONAL LESSON - Dogs want to chase after loud trucks (like our dachshund Franklin wants to) because the noise bothers them and they want it to stop.
(PHOTO: Dolly the "Snooter!")
A DOG'S SENSE OF SMELL - you know it's much greater than a human's sense of smell.
* YOU SMELL - Every person has their own "smell" usually generated from under their arms or crotch area. That's why dogs go there first. They need to "get to know you by your scent."
* SNIFFING OUT MANY THINGS - Dogs have been trained to smell for cadavers, termites, flammable liquids, natural gas, even cancerous growths!
* BREEDS HAVE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SNIFFING - Different breeds of dogs have different levels of ability in detecting scents. Dachshunds (like Franklin) have 125 million smell receptor cells, Bloodhounds have 300 million.
* HOW MUCH BETTER THAN HUMANS? - Dogs can identify smells between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than you and me.