What does your dog feel when he smells another dog on you?

What owner hasn't wondered if when they pet another dog, or spend time with a friend who also has a four-legged companion, if when they get home to their pet they will feel they have spent time with other dogs?

Since dogs can smell up to 100,000 times better than humans, the answer may be self-evident. However, it is worth looking a little further into the reasons behind it and taking a closer look. Let’s take a look at what might indicate that your dog has sniffed out another dog on you, and what interesting facts about four-legged sniffing are worth pointing out.

These are signs that the dog has sniffed out the other four-legged friend on you

Our furry pets are able to detect foreign pheromones, which can also be found in the urine, faeces, skin and fur of other breed mates. Pheromones provide information about the other dog’s sex, health, approximate age, sexual maturity and even mood. Your pet can also read a lot of information about where you’ve been and who you’ve met from the “traditional” smells you smell.

If your dog jumps up on you, sniffs intensely, twitches its whiskers, drools, looks anxious, excited, its pupils dilate, it’s likely to sense where you’ve wandered off and try to gather as much information as possible. And how quickly does he come to the conclusion that you’ve been seducing other good guys? According to a small study. it took dogs just one to two seconds, or five steps, to detect and follow their owner’s scent trail. Of course, many factors can affect how quickly your pet notices another dog’s scent, but some dogs are reported to detect scents from several kilometres away, so you certainly can’t hide where you’ve been for long.

However, dogs do not use their noses to detect pheromones, but their Jacobson’s organ, also known as the vomeronasal organ. The input to this is the two small slits in the palate that connect to the nasal cavity. If your pet starts to smacking its lips, purses its lips, shakes its jaw or seems to have a chattering tooth, it is probably directing air into the vomeronasal organ, where it converts fermions into information. This process Flehmen reaction is called the “Flehmen’s reaction”.

Dog and human olfaction differ in these ways

Detailed comparison of the sense of smell in dogs and humans can help you understand why your pet can detect other dogs’ scents so strongly on you.

Dogs have around 100-300 million olfactory receptors, while humans have only 6 million. This number can vary between breeds as the size of the internal surface of the sensory organs also affects the ability to smell. In any case, dogs are far superior to us in this respect.

The way odour molecules move through the nose is also a determining factor. Here too, dogs lead the way. When a dog sniffs, the air it breathes takes two separate pathways: some of it goes directly to the olfactory area of the nose, while the rest passes through the pharynx and into the lungs. From the air circulating in the nose, odour molecules are then trapped in the mucous membranes while receptors work hard to process the sample. In many cases, a single sniff is not enough for the dog to inhale enough odour molecules to identify the odour and process the information, which is why we find that the dog sniffs a lot during the analysis.

There are familiar and unfamiliar smells for dogs

For people, smells can be pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. We also associate certain smells with memories, i.e. we see them as familiar smells. Similarly, dogs can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar odours. A study has shown that dogs can recognise and correctly identify body odours or chemical cues associated with fear, happiness and neutral states. Researchers even observed that dogs’ heartbeats became faster when they detected fear-related odours. Recognising such signals and reacting appropriately in specific situations can be life-saving.

When you come into contact with another pet, your dog will try to decide if the animal is a threat by sniffing you. As we explained earlier, it processes the information carried by the pheromones, which, although it can’t see the other animal, gives it a fairly complex picture of it.