A dog’s sense of smell is 1,000,000 times better than that of humans. If you think you’re particular with scents, imagine how dogs can be! They can even smell scents that escape our human noses.
Studies revealed that dogs can even smell anger, fear, and sadness. This is how complex their sense of smell is! And in a recently published study, data revealed that they can also tell time through their noses.
A lot of complex functions happen when dogs are sniffing and actively using their nose. One such function is telling the time.
According to researcher, dog expert, and author Alexandra Horowitz, dogs tell time when they use their sense of smell. She explains that to a dog, each day smells different and brings a new scent.
According to her, dogs can smell the passing of hours. Every hour produces a change in the environment and it equates to a change of smell that dogs are particularly sensitive to.
These changes are primarily centered on the rise of hot air. This is the particular anchor that dogs tune into. Through the changing scent in the environment, dogs can tell if it’s day or night, regardless of the availability of light.
Dogs can also determine the passing of time. For them, the stronger the scent, the more recent the event is and the weaker the scent, the more that time has passed.
Given the thousand receptors that dogs have in their nose, it’s no wonder that dogs can indeed smell time and it’s passing. This brings so much light as to how they are such creatures of habit for they know how time smells and they can easily be trained to understand and determine what activities are supposed to be happening during a certain time. Dogs indeed are infinitely amazing!