The dog has long enjoyed the popular designation of man’s best friend and for good reason. These amazing animals possess extraordinary capacities for human relationships with their wagging tails, welcoming licks, and excited eyes. In addition to making lovable pets, however, dogs also provide great assistance to us in many ways by pulling sleds through snow, supporting police officers, and navigating for those who are blind.
Another quality at which canines excel is their ability to smell and this has resulted in their enlistment to hunt raccoons, rabbits, pheasants, deer, and many other critters. Their enhanced olfactory abilities also equip them to locate lost children as well as escaped convicts.
It is apparent from all studies that God has designed and wired dogs to be excellent smellers. According to an article in a 2023 Creation Magazine (Vol 45, No. 3), researchers have discovered that the area in a dog’s nose with scent receptors is over 10 times larger than the same area in a human’s schnozzle. In addition, dogs have up to 100 times more odor receptors per square inch than we do, and the location in a dog’s brain that processes scents is 40 times larger than ours! There’s a whole universe of aromas out there that we can’t detect but for which God uniquely engineered dogs to enjoy.
Because of their superb smelling, dogs are trained to use their noses to detect drugs and explosives as well as people buried under earthquake rubble. They are also able to assess human moods and emotions by perceiving stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol in both our sweat and breath. In double blind research tests, dogs were able to correctly determine between stressed and calm volunteers 94% of the time. So the old maxim that dogs can tell when you are scared of them is spot on and while you might be able to fool other people, Fido’s not buying it!
Another benefit of dogs’ enhanced smelling abilities enables specially trained hounds to react when they detect changes in human breath, sweat or salvia caused by drastic spiking or dropping insulin levels of diabetics. These Diabetic Alert Dogs can literally be life-savers for their owners by alerting them quickly of potentially life-threatening issues.
One springer spaniel named Jac is a four-legged member of the Scottish Power Energy Networks. Jac’s job is to sniff out leaking electrical cables buried under soil or asphalt. In addition to electrical wiring, some large power lines are filled with oil which improves their ability to endure high temperatures generated by large amounts of current. While this upgrades electrical service, the oil occasionally leaks from damaged sheathing increasing the odds of electrical failure and environmental harm.
Most of these cables are buried between 15 and 30 inches deep, but Jac has been known to smell leaking petroleum products from up to 6½ feet below the surface! While most man-made leak sensors can detect odors down to parts per million and require frequent maintenance and repair, God-made Jac can sense parts per billion and only needs an occasional doggie biscuit to maintain his current streak of 100% success. Oh, that we had a similar sensitivity to buried sin in our lives!
God created wolves (from which all dogs have come) with excellent abilities to smell food, friends, and foes and these capabilities have been directed in so many ways to benefit human beings in our world today. It’s impossible that such sensitivity and exactness could have developed randomly even over millions of years of supposed evolution. Mutations are nearly always harmful and most have not enhanced, but diminished capabilities of many animals, including dogs.
As our loyal four-legged friends welcome us home each evening, let’s feed them well, love them lavishly, and praise their Creator for making such incredible creatures to bless and help us in so many ways. Blessings, George