Many people believe that dogs have mystical abilities. A dog’s hair raising habit of howling and peering into the darkness as if looking at things unseen by human eyes is commonly attributed to psychic abilities. Dogs are even believed to have the ability to foretell death. Of course these beliefs have no scientific basis and dog behaviorists attribute these uncanny skills to the dog’s ultra sensitive senses.
Dog owners would attest to the fact that the sense of smell is the most sensitive sense of the dog and the sense of hearing comes a very close second. Generally, dogs are kept as companions but some breeds are specifically developed for police and protection work as these animals’ ultra sensitive senses are most valuable asset in this line of work. Dogs are relied to alert humans to the presence of intruders.
The ears of humans and dogs have an almost similar anatomical characteristics but a dog’s hearing ability is far superior to what humans have. The difference in hearing ability can be due to the type of ears as while human ears are practically immobile because of the way they are attached to the head, dogs ears that are composed of 18 or more muscles are highly movable. A dog’s ears can be moved easily to pick up sound more efficiently. The ears of a dog is not unlike a satellite dish whose direction can be moved to better capture the sound. This ability to move the ears is a valuable asset of dogs used by law enforcers as the direction of the ears gives a clue to the location of suspects. However, this does not mean that the hearing sensitivity is lessened if the dog has floppy ears. Floppy eared dogs like bloodhounds have hearing abilities that are superior to what humans have.
You may think that the hearing sensitivity of a dog would have some disadvantages because our canine friends will be flooded with sounds. Loud sounds that are picked up simultaneously will surely be overwhelming to humans. Dogs though have a unique ability to tone down the impressive hearing ability by filtering sounds. The raucous created by the blaring stereo and the screaming voices of playing children would be intolerable sounds for humans but a dog can peacefully sleep through this kind of din.
Dogs have an amazing ability to neutralize their sensitive ears. Dogs would simply filter the sound. A dog that would sleep through a jumble of discordant sounds but would rouse at once at the crackling sound of the kibble wrapper is showing its ability to screen sounds.
Find out more about dog hearing and how dogs hear at Sarah’s Dogs.
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