Loss of dog (and human) nose abilities [odor/scent detection]
Provided from much literature study and observations by owners of blind, blind-deaf and deaf dogs. Our thanks to owners.
Summary: As some owners of blind and blind-deaf dogs mentioned, indeed some dogs temporarily or permanently lack a fully effective use of the ability to detect and use scents. Basics of Dog biology that probably are involved were indentified in recent research. No cures are known for sure. Owners who realize that their dog lacks the complete set of the usual dogs’ abilities to detect and use scents however can instead provide replacements and supplements “signals” for their dogs, such as placing unique texture mats near places to identify the objects and locations for the dog. [Theoretically, electronic devices on the market could be tailored for blind or blind-deaf dogs use, but the costs seem to be prohibitive for nearly every owner.]
Discussion
Information from science and reports of owners confirmed that blind and blind-deaf dogs have an amazing variety of biological and mental processes that with loving consistent human companions can provide the dogs and their humans with a high quality of life. http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bigopp/Behaviorism.html Dogs are much more mentally and biologically adaptable to difficulties than it seems are many humans.
Although of great importance to blind and blind-deaf dogs, little was easily readable explaining how and why for some dogs and people their odor/scent detection ability seems to become useless or anyway little-used. This tries to summarize what a human engineer recently learned by reviewing literature, personal experience, comparative observation of blind and blind-deaf dogs, plus invaluable Internet observations by owners of blind, blind-deaf or deaf dogs. Some of the most readable are on Wikipedia, August 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfaction>, where these possibly doggish scent-problems were listed: :[28] § Anosmia – inability to detect smell
§ Dysosmia – things smell different than they should
§ Hyperosmia – an abnormally acute sense of smell.
§ Hyposmia – decreased ability to smell
§ Parosmia – things smell worse than they should
§ Phantosmia – "hallucinated smell," often unpleasant in nature
Biology: Scent detection is primarily the identification of specific classes of chemical molecules. Dogs mostly do that with detectors in the nostril air-flow. However, part of the air-flow is provided to the mouth where the chemical (taste) detectors in the roof of the mouth and of the tongue contribute. Odor chemical that dissolve in water (humidity) are more easily detected than other chemicals in the air. A dog who is panting with mouth partly open is improving her ability to detect more kinds of scents. Extremely large quantities of some pungent-strong chemicals can mask/prevent a dog’s detection of low quantities of other scent chemicals in the air.
Breeds: as is well known some breeds were developed by humans to be extra effective in odor detector, such as bloodhounds, beagles, bassets, etc. Oppositely, breeds such as greyhounds were bred to rely where possibly upon vision (so-called ‘sight hounds). Dogs of other breeds such as Dalmatians seem to vary in use of nose-scent ability/use from one genetic line to another. Further, each dog is a unique ‘person’ – there is no such creature as “THE DOG”, despite occasional unwise book titles and research report text to the reverse of that fact.
Medically induced loss of dog ability to detect scents is understood; which can happen during surgery or physical accidents (cars) on parts of the head. If the loss was caused by a medical painkiller injection, the loss usually (but not always) was temporary.
Genetic based lack of or loss of scent detection ability: This (based on sparse numbers of owners’ reports) can be real for specific individual dogs. Such is believed to be very rare at much less than one (one) per ten thousand dogs in the US. Research of dog scent detection biology, hearing-deafness biology, and vision-blindness biology confirmed a relationship and connectivity among those three systems. It is likely that technical features of genetic induced deterioration of hearing systems, vision (PRA and SARDs) systems, and the scent detection systems are similar, though comparable technical details for the scent system are still uncertain. No cures or preventives were known, except no unwise inbreeding.
Dog mental processing (use) of scent information: Reports of many owners indicate that their dogs of various breeds were observed to occasionally clearly “switch” from mentally mainly relying on scent detection, to instead mainly rely on vision, or alternatively some combination of the roughly eight ways that dogs (and some humans) use to detect mechanical vibrations (sound). Training was shown to facilitate the ability of specific dogs to switch to the best ‘mode’ for a situation – (which is what owners do when they create scent ‘labels’ on furniture and doors or steps for their blind and blind-deaf dogs.)
Discussion Re Use of scent detection as aids for blind and blind-deaf:
1) ‘Scent’ labeling of objects (such as furniture with lemon scents, exit - outside doors with ‘violet’, and so on were generally reported to almost instantly work well for some BUT not all.
2) Occasional reports suggested that a specific dog learned to rely on scents when the owner ‘educated’ her dog that certain odors were almost always on specific objects or places. Simply presenting a special scent to a dog at top of the stairs, and ‘working’ the dog at the same time to understand that it was at the top of the stairs was an illustration of training to aid specific dogs to get the idea that key odors meant the same thing almost always.
3) For some breeds, owners reported effectively using human communication [verbal or touch or vibration-sound] to urge the dog to try to switch to use scent detection (or vision).
Owners often effectively add scent labels to things to aid blind and blind-deaf dogs to live a happy life indoors and outdoors. “Education” helps dogs who for some reason don’t instantly grasp the idea that a specific scent always means the same things about where and what is there. For dog breeds who have an instinctive preference for relying on vision or hearing, owner spoken words or “touch” helped them to ‘switch’ to scent-based navigation and search for people of things and places.
Provided from much literature study and observations by owners of blind, blind-deaf and deaf dogs. Our thanks to owners.
Summary: As some owners of blind and blind-deaf dogs mentioned, indeed some dogs temporarily or permanently lack a fully effective use of the ability to detect and use scents. Basics of Dog biology that probably are involved were indentified in recent research. No cures are known for sure. Owners who realize that their dog lacks the complete set of the usual dogs’ abilities to detect and use scents however can instead provide replacements and supplements “signals” for their dogs, such as placing unique texture mats near places to identify the objects and locations for the dog. [Theoretically, electronic devices on the market could be tailored for blind or blind-deaf dogs use, but the costs seem to be prohibitive for nearly every owner.]
Discussion
Information from science and reports of owners confirmed that blind and blind-deaf dogs have an amazing variety of biological and mental processes that with loving consistent human companions can provide the dogs and their humans with a high quality of life. http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bigopp/Behaviorism.html Dogs are much more mentally and biologically adaptable to difficulties than it seems are many humans.
Although of great importance to blind and blind-deaf dogs, little was easily readable explaining how and why for some dogs and people their odor/scent detection ability seems to become useless or anyway little-used. This tries to summarize what a human engineer recently learned by reviewing literature, personal experience, comparative observation of blind and blind-deaf dogs, plus invaluable Internet observations by owners of blind, blind-deaf or deaf dogs. Some of the most readable are on Wikipedia, August 2012 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfaction>, where these possibly doggish scent-problems were listed: :[28] § Anosmia – inability to detect smell
§ Dysosmia – things smell different than they should
§ Hyperosmia – an abnormally acute sense of smell.
§ Hyposmia – decreased ability to smell
§ Parosmia – things smell worse than they should
§ Phantosmia – "hallucinated smell," often unpleasant in nature
Biology: Scent detection is primarily the identification of specific classes of chemical molecules. Dogs mostly do that with detectors in the nostril air-flow. However, part of the air-flow is provided to the mouth where the chemical (taste) detectors in the roof of the mouth and of the tongue contribute. Odor chemical that dissolve in water (humidity) are more easily detected than other chemicals in the air. A dog who is panting with mouth partly open is improving her ability to detect more kinds of scents. Extremely large quantities of some pungent-strong chemicals can mask/prevent a dog’s detection of low quantities of other scent chemicals in the air.
Breeds: as is well known some breeds were developed by humans to be extra effective in odor detector, such as bloodhounds, beagles, bassets, etc. Oppositely, breeds such as greyhounds were bred to rely where possibly upon vision (so-called ‘sight hounds). Dogs of other breeds such as Dalmatians seem to vary in use of nose-scent ability/use from one genetic line to another. Further, each dog is a unique ‘person’ – there is no such creature as “THE DOG”, despite occasional unwise book titles and research report text to the reverse of that fact.
Medically induced loss of dog ability to detect scents is understood; which can happen during surgery or physical accidents (cars) on parts of the head. If the loss was caused by a medical painkiller injection, the loss usually (but not always) was temporary.
Genetic based lack of or loss of scent detection ability: This (based on sparse numbers of owners’ reports) can be real for specific individual dogs. Such is believed to be very rare at much less than one (one) per ten thousand dogs in the US. Research of dog scent detection biology, hearing-deafness biology, and vision-blindness biology confirmed a relationship and connectivity among those three systems. It is likely that technical features of genetic induced deterioration of hearing systems, vision (PRA and SARDs) systems, and the scent detection systems are similar, though comparable technical details for the scent system are still uncertain. No cures or preventives were known, except no unwise inbreeding.
Dog mental processing (use) of scent information: Reports of many owners indicate that their dogs of various breeds were observed to occasionally clearly “switch” from mentally mainly relying on scent detection, to instead mainly rely on vision, or alternatively some combination of the roughly eight ways that dogs (and some humans) use to detect mechanical vibrations (sound). Training was shown to facilitate the ability of specific dogs to switch to the best ‘mode’ for a situation – (which is what owners do when they create scent ‘labels’ on furniture and doors or steps for their blind and blind-deaf dogs.)
Discussion Re Use of scent detection as aids for blind and blind-deaf:
1) ‘Scent’ labeling of objects (such as furniture with lemon scents, exit - outside doors with ‘violet’, and so on were generally reported to almost instantly work well for some BUT not all.
2) Occasional reports suggested that a specific dog learned to rely on scents when the owner ‘educated’ her dog that certain odors were almost always on specific objects or places. Simply presenting a special scent to a dog at top of the stairs, and ‘working’ the dog at the same time to understand that it was at the top of the stairs was an illustration of training to aid specific dogs to get the idea that key odors meant the same thing almost always.
3) For some breeds, owners reported effectively using human communication [verbal or touch or vibration-sound] to urge the dog to try to switch to use scent detection (or vision).
Owners often effectively add scent labels to things to aid blind and blind-deaf dogs to live a happy life indoors and outdoors. “Education” helps dogs who for some reason don’t instantly grasp the idea that a specific scent always means the same things about where and what is there. For dog breeds who have an instinctive preference for relying on vision or hearing, owner spoken words or “touch” helped them to ‘switch’ to scent-based navigation and search for people of things and places.