3 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Dog’s Nose

Want to win your next dinner party? No need to learn how to fold your napkin into a lotus flower (that’s so 2013), just wow the guests with your superior knowledge about your dog’s superior nose. Here are three party-ready facts that will–pardon the pun–blow everyone’s mind.

1. We humans have about six million olfactory receptors (part of the system that detects initial odors) in our noses. Not too shabby, eh? Six million of anything is a lot, but dogs have–drumroll, please–up to 300 million. (Those guys are rich with olfactory receptors!) Put in terms of net worth, your nose is Jim Gaffigan and your dog’s nose is Beyoncé.

2. Even when they exhale, dogs are still smelling. No, really. When we humans exhale through our noses, it forces out any incoming odors. Dogs, on the other hand, have tiny slits in the sides of their noses where exiting air escapes, which pretty much allows dogs constant intake of info. And the subtle swirl of exiting air out of these little slits actually helps more air get directed into the nostrils. This is why you experience the pleasant scent of bacon frying and dogs seem to be experiencing BACON UNICORNS PRANCING AROUND GRANTING UNLIMITED WISHES!

3. Dogs can smell left and right. At the same time. Dog nostrils can move independently and because of this, they can determine which nostril an odor arrived in, making them experts at tracking a scent and locating the source. You observe a dog sniffing an erratic, invisible trail? That could be the very path a squirrel darted hours or even days before. You, on the other hand, can’t even detect the leftover takeout in the back of your fridge that went bad three weeks ago.

So yeah, your dog has a super power. F’reals. But you and the rest of the dinner guests don’t need to feel intimidated. After all, you still have those nifty opposable thumbs. And checking accounts. I mean, those are cool too?

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