Is your dog's nose cold and wet? – Telegraph Blogs

Thursday 28 May 2015 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Pete Wedderburn


Is your dog's nose cold and wet?

Everyone knows that a dog's nose should be cold and wet, but up until now, nobody knew why. Scientists from Pennsylvania have recently announced the results of their latest research into this fascinating subject. The cold wetness that we all know so well from being nuzzled by dogs, is in fact a layer of moist mucus.

The scientists used MRI images of a dog's nasal airways to develop computer models of the flow of air-borne microscopic particles around the inside of the muzzle. They discovered that before odour molecules can reach the smell receptor sites that line the nose, they have to pass through this layer of moist mucus. Some molecules are absorbed more rapidly than others. This means that a process of "pre-sorting" of smells takes place, which is thought to make it easier and quicker for the brain to identify them.

To explain this, imagine a bucket full of marbles of different sizes. If you could pour them through a mesh filter to separate the big ones from the little ones, you would be able to carry out a much more rapid analysis of the size and number of the different types of marbles. The wetness of a dog's nose acts as a filter for smells in this way.

What does this new finding mean in practice? Dogs with wet noses are likely to have a better sense of smell than dogs with dry noses. This information is not going to change the world, but it is kind of interesting, isn't it?

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