When I go for a walk in the woods, it’s normally to escape the bustle of distractions and let myself focus on a character in whatever story I’m writing. Lately, I’ve willingly added a new distraction to take on my walks.
I’m talking about Phineas, or Finn for short, a handsome, energetic, and fun-loving one year old Boxer / German Shepherd mix I’ve recently adopted.
Though our walks have been somewhat hampered by arctic temperatures, I still try to allow Finn’s nose to dictate the pace. Apparently, 15 – 20 minutes of sniffing is the equivalent to an hour’s walk, because it’s mentally tiring to actively analyze and interpret smells. Going by Finn’s dedicated daily smell routine on and under the snow, he’s getting a solid workout.
A dog’s ability to decode smells is mindboggling. While Finn has made it his job to sniff out sticks, deer tracks, and other woodland delights, some dogs have the responsibility of detecting bombs, drugs, missing people, bodies, cash, truffles, plants and agricultural diseases, to name but a few.
In one experiment, a dog detected a single fingerprint dabbed onto a microscope slide and left exposed to the elements on a rooftop for a week. Those odds seem as insurmountable as me trying to find the beating heart of my story, only the dog in the experiment found what he was looking for in minutes, my quest took me months!
But then again, dogs are anatomically set up for success. When they inhale, unlike humans, only part of the air goes into their lungs, the rest goes into a bony labyrinth with a sticky lining called the epithelium. It’s full of long neurons with odorant receptors at the ends, that plug directly into the dog’s brain.
Dogs detect who or what has been in a place, even long after the person or item is no longer there. And they can smell a family member so far away, they get excited long before the person walks in the door. If you think about it, they are actually reading the past and future.
On the subject of the past, theories about when wolves began their transformation to become the first animal domesticated by humans range vastly from 12,000 to 130,000 years ago.
Despite our long-standing relationship, interestingly, most dog breeds were developed in the last 150 years during the ‘Victorian Explosion’ of dog breeding in Great Britain, inspired by Darwin’s ideas of natural selection.
Much of this breeding has made it easier for the domestic dog to communicate with and read facial clues. Breeds have also gained new facial musculature in the domestication process. You know, those puppy dog eyes that are just too adorable to ignore? They trigger a nurturing response. Their faces have also reshaped to resemble humans, and, being easier to read, they’re better at triggering.
If you’re wondering, those expressions are sincere, an fMRI study has shown that the brain’s reward center in a dog activates when presented with an object smelling of its owner.
And if that weren’t proof enough that our dogs love us, analyses of dog and human urine show that both species release oxytocin, the “love hormone” when they look at each other. So, if your pooch has a little accident on the living room carpet, don’t get too mad - it might just contain a bit of love.
Personally, I won’t be putting my nose anywhere near the yellow snow. I’ll just have to trust those puppy dog eyes and the way he greets me as though we’ve been apart for years. I’m also grateful to Finn who’s lifting my spirits in these chaotic times.
As for that precious walking time to channel my characters, I’m trying to maintain my focus, but don’t be too surprised if my characters suddenly develop a keen and acute fascination with smells. Hmm, which makes me wonder if Patrick Süskind had a dog when he came up with the idea for his novel, Perfume.