Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: IzzieC on 22/02/2018 17:30:20
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Katie asks:
I've heard that how we taste our food depends strongly on our sense of smell. But my dog, with her superior sense of smell, dashes off eagerly to eat whatever pungent smelling thing she finds. Why doesn't her excellent nose make her a pickier eater? Or at least less interested in what the neighbor's cat has left behind in the yard?
Can you help?
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If my dog is given a bone when he's not particularly hungry, he will bury it under leaves, and go back to it days later, when he is presumably hungrier, and the food is presumably more tender.
Dogs are proverbial for eating their vomit - clearly unconsumed calories in there!
Dogs also have better oral antibiotics than humans - apparently a human bite is more likely to become infected than a dog bite.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia#Vertebrates
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True carnivorous scavengers have exceptionally low stomach pH - the acid will destroy pretty well any biological material. Dogs and vultures eat "anything" "because they can".
The dynamic range of a dog's nose is exceptional too: differential sniffing will tell her which way a rabbit crossed her path, but she will happily snuffle the bum of a newcomer and recognise his personal signature amid the general stench of poo.
The only reason they need us is doorhandles.
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... my dog, with her superior sense of smell, dashes off eagerly to eat ... what the neighbor's cat has left behind in the yard ...
Coprophagia ?
Dogs may be coprophagic, possibly to rebalance their microbiome or to ingest missing nutrients.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia#Vertebrates