# A dog's life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 7, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271 "2016-09-07T14:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whitney\_Harper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@Whitney\_Harper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whitney_Harper)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/1 "2016-09-07T14:39:31Z")
How do you think dogs view their surroundings as opposed to humans? Do they recognize people by scent or by what we look like, or both? I often wonder what it would be like to have such a great sense of smell that dogs have. What do you think a day in the life of a dog is like from their perspective? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/2 "2016-09-07T14:59:59Z")
Read [_Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know_](https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Dog-What-Dogs-Smell/dp/1416583432/), [_How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain_](https://www.amazon.com/How-Dogs-Love-Us-Neuroscientist/dp/0544114515/), and [_The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think_](https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Dogs-Smarter-Than-Think/dp/0142180467/). A dog’s primary sense is of smell, and this dictates a lot of what we view as being “odd” behavior (smelling each others genitals and anus, stopping to smell during walks, why they like or dislike a person). Dogs have a lower visual acuity but actually see at a higher effective frame rate. The differences in both of these senses explain their relative disinterest in projected images. Dogs are, of course, evolved to both view humans as dominant protectors, and to be viewed by humans as subordinate compansions, hence the neotenic characteristics of the domestic dog versus the gray wolf and their tendancy to engage in social play behaviors into adulthood. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/3 "2016-09-07T15:41:48Z")
+1 on that book. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/4 "2016-09-07T15:57:40Z")
It must be very distracting to be a dog, what with that fabulous sense of smell. “Hey glad to meetya, say, someone dropped a hamburger over there in 2009 and I wanna check out that mailbox post, smells like a Labrador I once knew and whoa, got any cookies?” ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/5 "2016-09-07T16:23:41Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “Hey glad to meetya, say, someone dropped a hamburger over there in 2009 and I wanna check out that mailbox post, smells like a Labrador I once knew and whoa, got any cookies?” And in the \*second \*second of encounter… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/6 "2016-09-07T17:53:14Z")
One time several years ago I was living with my parents. I had a chow/golden retriever cross named Mandy and they had a little Bichon Frisé named Heidi. One time I took Mandy to a dog park and there was a little Bichon that looked almost identical to Heidi. Well, Mandy was absolutely fascinated by the other dog. She kept sniffing and sniffing as if she were trying to figure out why this dog looked liked Heidi, but didn’t smell like her. So dogs do apparently recognize people and other dogs by sight to some degree as well as scent. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/7 "2016-09-07T18:19:26Z")
My dog watches TV and reacts to what he sees. I think he thinks it’s a window. There is no smell involved so I assume it’s all based on visuals. He is very protective of us and tries to keep the lions and elephants out of the house. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/8 "2016-09-07T18:30:17Z")
While it’s true that dogs have a much better sense of smell than humans do, humans also have a much better sense of smell than most people realize we do. Richard Feynman once decided to see just how far he could hone his own sense of smell, and got to the point where he could leave ten people alone in a room with a bookshelf with instructions for one of them to handle a random book a bit and then put it back. He was able to tell just by smell which person it was, and what book they had handled. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/9 "2016-09-07T22:19:19Z")
Comments by Gordon Shepherd, Yale neuroscientist, about a study where volunteers were trained to follow a scent trail: "Shepherd has argued that although we have fewer odour receptors than other animals, we may compensate for this with an improved ability to analyse scent information with our large brains. We may just seem worse at tracking scents because we don’t practice this skill from birth, the way that dogs do, he argues. “We have a much better sense of smell than rats and dogs because of our greater brainpower,” says Shepherd. “This shows that in a few training sets, humans can achieve something that other animals spend their life being trained to do.” > **[People track scents in same way as dogs : Nature News](https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061211/full/news061211-18.html)** > > Nature - the world's best science and medicine on your desktop ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/10 "2016-09-07T22:53:12Z")
> [@Whitney\_Harper](#): > > How do you think dogs view their surroundings as opposed to humans? Let’s strap a GoPro to a nice young Labrador who likes the beach, and see what happens. It's not \*exactly\* a definitive dogs-eye perspective but it's great anyway :) ---
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/11 "2016-09-08T15:29:07Z")
That was great! I like how he just blasted-by everyone on the beach to jump in the water. He really wanted that swim. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/12 "2016-09-08T16:25:16Z")
And he jumps over walls so quickly it looks like the video was cut at those points. ---
**Author:** ![Sputnikkk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Sputnikkk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sputnikkk)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/13 "2016-09-10T10:10:08Z")
I imagine different dog breeds rely on their senses differently. Scent hounds like beagles and basset hounds seem to experience everything through their nose, and rely less on their eyes and hearing to figure anything out. I had a beagle-spaniel mix once and it could barely be taught to heal on a leash because it was always sniffing the ground, looking for a trail, very frustrating to train. Also, if you threw a ball to fetch beagles only find it by sniffing, not by watching where it lands. In contrast the border collies I’ve had, use their eyes and hearing more. They look at you when you speak, make eye contact when you train them, they watch your hands and body language for visual clues to figure out what you want them to do in sports like agility. If you throw a ball they watch your body movements to anticipate ahead of time where the ball will land and you can’t fake them out very easily with the ball, if you fake like you threw the ball but hold onto it, border collies don’t run out looking for a ball that’s not there because they saw that it didn’t leave your hand. But you can always fake out a beagle throwing the ball and it will run around sniffing for balls that aren’t there endlessly. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2016, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-dogs-life/765271/14 "2016-09-10T11:57:13Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > Comments by Gordon Shepherd, Yale neuroscientist, about a study where volunteers were trained to follow a scent trail: > "Shepherd has argued that although we have fewer odour receptors than other animals, we may compensate for this with an improved ability to analyse scent information with our large brains. We may just seem worse at tracking scents because we don’t practice this skill from birth, the way that dogs do, he argues. > > “We have a much better sense of smell than rats and dogs because of our greater brainpower,” says Shepherd. “This shows that in a few training sets, humans can achieve something that other animals spend their life being trained to do.” > > [People track scents in same way as dogs : Nature News](http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061211/full/news061211-18.html) That’s semantics, and irritating. He’s redefined “sense of smell” to mean “search pattern we use to find something one can smell,” whereas most of us think of it as “ability to detect faint odors,” at which dogs and other animals are indisputably superior (as another scientist in the article admits).