We always hear stories about the amazing ability of dogs to identify people, but how exactly does it work? Just below you will find a detailed explanation of this amazing ability is possible for our beloved pets. So check it out and learn a little more about man's best friend.
Understand how man's best friend sees
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Discover now how canines identify and interact with the world.
Animals are like us
We've heard thousands of fantastic stories about dogs' identification ability, but how exactly does it happen?
From knowing when the owner is coming, identifying him in a crowd or even after years apart, dogs have the amazing ability to identify their “parents”.
Just like humans, dogs are dependent on the senses: touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight and smell to identify and interact with the world, the same happens with animals.
Dogs are colorblind
However, when we deal with our 4-legged friends, their senses have different precisions and consequently different importance for them.
Vision, for example, is the main sense for identification in humans, and so we are used to associating it with identification.
However, this sense is extremely limited for dogs and other domestic animals such as cats. This is because these animals are not able to distinguish all colors, as they only have 2 color receptors while we have 3.
That is, different from what is imagined in the popular inventory, dogs do not see in black and white, but in color, but they have a more compromised vision.
They have a super power
So, by what sense do dogs identify people? The answer is simple: through smell.
Canines have an olfactory capacity up to 100,000 times better than ours. The reason for this is because dogs have 300 million olfactory receptors while we only have 6, in addition to the fact that the processing region in the brain is 40x more developed.
This super sense is the reason for the already established use of dogs for identification, such as in jobs such as hunting, as police dogs and even for identifying diseases.
How to form an affective bond with these animals?
Therefore, smell is the most important sense when we seek to form and strengthen bonds with man's best friend. That is, a constant proximity, consequently generates more attachment and strengthens the relationship with the animal.
A great example of this is that at home with more than one person, the one chosen as the pet's favorite is usually the caregiver with the most contact.
However, it is worth noting that although smell is the main sense for identification and bonding, it is not the only one. Being the audition and the creation of a routine, such as the owner's return home time and for a walk, essential factors to strengthen the relationship.
