Dogs are super smellers!

A dog's sense of smell is more than 10,000 times better than your sense of smell. That is hard to imagine. Just think of being able to smell a hot dog from a mile away.

Why are dogs such good smellers? They have more olfactory receptors than human do. Olfactory receptors are tiny sensors inside the nose. When the dog smells something, the olfactory receptors send a signal to the dog's brain.

So if a dog smells food, the olfactory receptors send a signal to the brain. Dinner time!

Dogs developed this sense of smell so they could find food. Pet dogs are related to wild wolves. Wolves use their sense of smell to find prey like elk or deer.

Today, dogs use their sense of smell to help people. Some dogs are trained to sniff for missing people and help find them in a disaster.

Learn more about dogs