5 Extraordinary Things Dogs are Trained to Sniff Out

Dogs have an amazing sense of smell and can be trained to sniff out some pretty extraordinary things. They can be taught to find people who've buried under rubble after a natural disaster, track down bombs and many other things so that people are kept that much safer. All the training our canine companions receive is, however, built on a tremendous natural ability to track things down with their noses.

The Reason Why Dogs Like to Sniff Everything

A dog's nose is a very powerful tool that together with their ears and tongues make them pretty formidable trackers. As our four-legged friends evolved and had to rely on their sense of smell in order to survive, it meant their brains had to adapt too. The other thing is that the length of a dog's nose has a direct bearing on their ability to sniff things out.

An example being the Beagle, a breed that is renowned for their sense of smell, whereas a Pekingese is not. The thing to bear in mind is that all dogs have a good sense of smell as compared to that of a person no matter what breed they happen to be, but some breeds are better than others and can pick up the subtlest of scents and follow trails to find what they are looking for.

Scent-discrimination Training in Dogs

In truth there is no much a dog cannot be trained to track down using their ultra keen noses. Often called “tracking training”, experts use many ways to teach our canine friends to find a specific thing which when correctly trained they do very well, but only as long as the object has some sort of scent. The amazing thing is that dogs can sense when a person is ill and when they need to take medication.

Below is a list of the more extraordinary things that dogs all over the globe are being trained to track down with their noses.

Dogs are Being Trained to Sense Environmental Changes

Dogs have such acute senses they can be trained to detect all sorts of changes in our environment which includes finding leaks in sewerage pipes. If not found and repaired, the leaking sewerage could ultimately contaminate our drinking water by getting into the reservoirs. Bee keepers now use dogs to detect any devastating bacterial diseases that could destroy their hives.

Dogs Can Sense Health Issues in People

For a while now, dogs have been trained to sense when a person is about to have a seizure whether its epilepsy or other. Our amazing canine companions are able to detect the slightest chemical and hormonal changes in a person's body and can do so for people the know and those they have just come into contact with.

In America, ranchers use dogs to let them know when their cows come into season and it's a well known fact, that dogs can sense when a woman is pregnant. They can also tell when a person suffering from diabetes needs to have a shot of insulin. Dogs are capable of smelling these changes in a person's sweat, their urine and stools which means they know when a person may have cancer or some other health issue that affects their skin, bladder or other internal organs.

Dogs Can Be Trained to Track Down Invasive Insects

In many countries around the world, a plague of insects can cause havoc with crops and devastate an annual harvest which can have all sorts of repercussions on the country's economy. Dogs can even be trained to sniff out those all invasive and extremely destructive house termites.

Dogs are Trained to Sniff Out Pirate DVDs

Our lovely canine friends are now being trained to sniff out pirated DVDs and other items connected with technology which includes them being able to find a mobile phone that's been hidden away. They can do this because many of these things are made out of some pretty unique materials which dogs are taught to track down.

Dogs can be Trained to Sniff Out Expensive Truffles

Truffles are one of the most sought after and therefore expensive types of fungi on the planet and dogs can be taught to sniff them out with no trouble at all. Considered a real delicacy, people in the past have used pigs to find truffles, but they tend to eat them and destroy the area these fungi grow in. Dogs other the other hand leave these gastronomic treasures intact ready to be sold for vast amounts of money to restaurant owners and other people who love their food.

Conclusion

Over the years people have come to rely on dogs for many things apart from the pleasure of sharing a home with them. Our clever four-legged friends have an incredible sense of smell and when taught to sniff something out, they do this with no trouble at all often saving many lives in the process.