Competition

A dog’s nose is an amazing thing to behold. Dogs have the ability to: wiggle each nostril independently, breathe in through the holes in the front of the nose and exhale through the side slits, and discern individual odors making up what we could call a “scent.” Humans have about 5 million cells devoted to smelling; dogs have up to 220 million. Not only that, but dogs have four times the brain power devoted to processing scents! We smell “vegetable soup,” but a dog smells each individual ingredient. Dogs’ noses are so powerful they can detect one tablespoon of sugar in the amount of water it would take to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools!

Dogs smile. Just like people, dogs pull the corners of their mouths up high toward their eyes, partially open their mouths, and smile. In 1872, Darwin wrote of the universality of facial expressions in The Expressions of Emotions in Man and Animals. Roughly 130 years later, Dr. Patricia McConnell authored For the Love of a Dog in which she compared human and dog facial expressions using the methods developed by Paul Ekman, the world's leading scientist on the topic. The truth is out: dogs smile, and, of course, experience emotions.