Just like you, your dog uses his 5 senses to interact with the world. However, they do it differently than you do. To truly understand how dogs perceive the world, let’s explore your furry best friend’s senses.

Smell

Your dog’s nose is a thousand times more sensitive to odors as compared to yours. If humans rely on their sense of sight to interpret the world, dogs do it by smelling an object. Dogs can identify their owners and other animals from far away even without seeing them.

Dogs can also smell sadness, anxiety and fear. You may be able to fool your friends by masking your feeling with a casual smile, but you can’t fool your dog.

Sight

Dogs have a wider angle of view as compared to humans. Their low light vision is also better than humans.

A lot of people think that dogs only see in black and white, but studies have found it’s not true. Dogs can see colors.  However, they cannot see nearly as many colors as humans do. In fact, they only see colors in various shades of yellow and blue.

Taste

Dogs have significantly weaker taste buds than humans. Humans have 9,000 taste buds while dogs only have 1,700. Taste may be dogs’ least developed sense, but it is made up for by their keen sense of smell.

Touch

Touch is the first sense a dog develops. Puppies need it in order to survive. They use it to find warmth and nourishment upon birth. Touch remains an important sense throughout the dog’s life. Of the 5 senses, this is the one that mirrors that of a human’s the most.

Hearing

Hearing is a dog’s second best sense. However, they can’t hear until they turn 21 days old. Once their sense of hearing develops, their hearing is already 4 times better than you.

Humans can hear in frequencies ranging from 12 Hz to 20 kHz, while dogs can hear in frequencies ranging from around 40 Hz to 60 kHz. Next time you hear your dog barking at something you can’t see, he may be hearing something interesting.