Saturday, October 1, 2011

"Do You Smell"

Good Morning Everyone.  WElcome to the Search and Rescue part of the Blogville Community Safety Week.

I am Bert and I will be your guide thru the next seven days as we learn all about Wilderness SAfety, Humans and Dogs and How they smell and a hole bunch of other stuff.

WE are going to start out with The difference between the Human Nose and the Incredible K-9 Nose.

My Vickie wants to thank everyone who sent in pictures for us to use.  I want to thank you for checking in each day and hopefully learning some new things.

OFF we go:
 So whats with all the stuff floating in the sky?  Well my friends those are Skin Rafts.


Every person loses 40,000 skin cells per minute. These cells take the shape of tiny flakes called skin rafts which can float on air currents or drop to the ground depending on humidity levels, wind currents, sunshine, cloud cover, terrain, and temperature. 


I am sure you have heard that humans have fingerprints and that no fingerprint is alike.  Not one person on the whole earth has a fingerprint like yours.  That makes you special and different than anyone else....But Did You Know that you also have a SMELL that is unique only to you.  No other person in the whole world smells like you.....


 And the cool thing is that us dogs, well we have such great noses that we can tell the difference between the way you smell and the way anyone else smells.

Here is how.......
 
Inside the human nose is a tiny microscopic little hair known as your olfactory receptor.  On the end of each receptor is 5 to 10 itty bitty little hairs called Cilia.  They gather the smells you come across and send a message to your brain.   

"Mmmmmmm What's That Smell I Smell" You ask..

After it goes past the filament hairs and into the bigger hairs (receptors) and in to your brain... you get....

"CHOCOLATE"  

If you read the picture above you now know that us dogs have WAY more hairs in our noses than you do.

So when you smell Chocolate Cake, you think.... "MMMMMM Chocolate Cake"

But when we smell Chocolate Cake, we think...... "MMMMM, butter, sugar, eggs, flour"  (I have to stop with the recepie now cause thats all My Vickie knows about cake cookin.)
And what is even more cool, is that because everyone in the world smells different and us dogs have such incredible noses, we can do what is called "Scent Discrimination" so if you were ever lost, we could search with hundreds of other people and dogs, but our super noses would not be confused by the other smells, cause we would be looking of your particular special smell.

Be sure to join us tomorrow cause we are gonna go over what those humans should do "Before They Go" and "What to Take in Your Pack"  if you are big, little, young or old.

31 comments:

♥♥ The OP Pack ♥♥ said...

Wow, it is only Day One, and we have already learned so much. We never knew we had hairs in our noses. We wonder if we sibes have more than other pups - BOL. Mom says it is a good thing she doesn't have to use those nose tweezers on us - that would not be fun.

Sniff, sniff, we think we smell bacon cooking - off we go.

Woos ~ Phantom, Thunder, Ciara, and Lightning

rottrover said...

Wow, Bert!! We've tried and tried to explain this stuff to mom, but she never seems to get it. You made it really clear! Thanks, dude!!

-Gizmo, Bart and Ruby

Scooter said...

Hey Deputy Bert!
Wow, this is soooooo great!! You are one pawesome teacher and I can't wait to see your other posts. Thanks so much for a cool kick-off to Safety Week!
Grr and Woof,
Sarge, COP

Road Dog Tales said...

This is AWESOME! Although WE, of course, already knew this, it really cleared up some stuff for MOM about why we're always sniffing everything and everybody! Cool pics and illustrations - Mom really DOES need people to draw her a picture. BOL! Great job Bert!

The Road Dogs

Lucy-Fur, as typed by Dr. Liz said...

Excellent! As they say, 'the nose knows!' Heehee. We look forward to learning more; we try not to let our humans get lost, but we were kinda hoping you'd suggest we slather them in bacon grease to make them easier to find! ;-)

*kissey face*
-Fiona and Abby the Hippobottomus

Finn said...

This is great!! I love this post!

Sophie said...

I never realised how many scent receptors dog noses had! I knew they had more than us silly humans, but didn't know it was so many!

Thanks for the post, Bert!

Frankie Furter and Ernie said...

HOLY GWALK A MOLEY.... are you SURE I have that many hairs in MY nose.. It's kinda little you know.
I made my mom read this. She is is all flabberdeegasted. I thought she was gonna FAIN reading all this... specially that we don't just smell the CAKE.. we smell what it is made from.
HOLY GWALK A MOLEY!!
Wonderful job Dep. Bert.
Can't wait to learn more!!!

Meeka said...

Very informative post! Even mommy learned something new today.

Angels Amber and Max DaWeenie and Mom said...

Wow...dis is some really great stuff.....specially da cake pawt!!!

:o)

STELLA and RORY from Down Under said...

Hi Bert, thank you so much. We didn't know how many hairs we had in our noses only that everything smells sooo good. Poor old humans with their poor little noses. We look forward to more exciting stuff.
No worries, and love, Stella and Rory

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

How interesting this is!! I didn't know there was such a difference in the way our pups can smell and we do--I guess that may help explain why things that I think stink, our crew thinks they don't and want to roll in it! ;-))

PS: Glad Jamie is doing well!

K9 Katastrophie said...

Hi Bert! Gee that is awesome!! Thanks for sharing with us! I didn't know I had so many nose hairs!

Licks,
Bucky

Boondocks Love Shack Pack said...

We find this all so very fascinating. It's great that you are posting it this week too cause our whole gang is going camping next week!! We are going to be well educated before we head out!!!

AROOOOOF!
Boondocks & The Love Shack Pack

Molly the Airedale said...

What a great post, Bert! We learned so much from you today!

Love ya lots,
Maggie and Mitch

Unknown said...

What a great post Bert! Me did not know all that about dogs! And Smelling.
Kisses
Nellie

Curt Rogers said...

This is GREAT, Vickie! I love learning about how Duncan smells! Keep it coming! THANKS!

Maggie Mae and Max said...

Excellent post my furiend! :)

Woofs and Licks,
Maggie Mae

Anonymous said...

Wow bark about neato info this is it! Such wonderful and informative info Bert! Thanks so much, I sure look forward to more!

Woos, Tessa

houndstooth said...

That was a lot of cool info! I can't wait to see what you think should be in our packs. Morgan and I want to know if we're truly prepared!

Bunny

1000 Goldens said...

Bert, you are the smartest dog I ever met. Thank you for the fun and educational article. I liked it best when you smelled the ingredients in the recipe :)

The Daily Pip said...

Wow, I learned a lot. I loved the analogy of chocolate cake. Any idea how long a dog's scent memory is? Just curious how long they remember smells/people.

Can't wait for tomorrow's post!

Pip's peeps

Just Ramblin' said...

Great info and photos!

Anonymous said...

Wow!

Thank you so much!

What a great post!

Do you know if I have more of those hairs cause I'm a Beagle? Or is my nose just stronger?

xo
luna

WFT Nobby said...

Who knew that our humans were so handicapped? Most educational post Bert, thank you very much.
Toodle pip!
Bertie.

snoopy@snoopysdogblog said...

Hey Bert,

I had no idea about all that smelling stuff - that's so cool to learn, all I knew is that even though I'm not a special Search and Rescue Dog like you I sure can tell what Mum's been up to if she goes out without me.

She gets a proper 'sniff over' when she comes in and if she's 'Been with another Dog!!' - yep, hard to believe, but sometimes she does! Well, then she gets a thorough investigation and I'll work out who it was!!

Nose twitches to you buddy,

Your pal Snoopy :)

PS - the humans also think they can 'sneak' Hot Dogs to the kids without me knowing, yeah right?!!

KB said...

Awesome post!!!! Most people have no idea how many skin rafts they're leaving behind... Isn't it also true that much more of a dog's brain is devoted to interpreting smell than a human's brain? Or, am I getting ahead of you???

I try to explain to people why I can't go check my bear den wildlife camera more than once per year. I explain that I'd leave behind so much scent that no bear would ever choose to use the den. They always say - Well, wouldn't your scent be gone in hours? Nope... but I bet that you know way more about that than I do!!!!

Thanks for using our pic! I can't wait for the rest of this series!

Anonymous said...

Hey this is great! Super info and really fun photos :D

Waggin at ya,
Roo

Adien Crafts said...

Hi Bert! Sorry we're late arriving for safety week, the Hoooman got caught up with something, anyway we're now on a big catch up!

Wow - we new we could smell so much better than THEM, but now we can prove it, brilliant!

Can'y wait to read the next post now! Dex and Lou xxx

2browndawgs said...

Way behind since we've been out of town. What am interesting post. Can't wait to read the next installment.

Sagira said...

Lots of learning going on over here. :)