“Dogs love car rides,” says Science.
If you are a dog owner there is probably nothing new for you in the claim above. Even if you have never had a dog you’ve probably have noticed at least once in your life a flopping ears, slicked fur due to car speed and the happiest face ever of a dog riding in a car next to yours. They just can not resist sticking their heads through the window and the wind in their fur once wheels start rolling.
And have you ever wondered why is that so? Science says that it has something to do with their very sensitive sense of smell. Dogs perceive the world around much more through this sense than us humans. There are 5 million olfactory receptors in a human body and over 300 million olfactory receptors in dogs’.
Dr. Melissa Bain, a veterinarian at the University of California, says that in that way – while sticking the head out of a car in motion, dogs receive a large input of smells which present information. At higher speed, the input is more massive and a dog gets in a state which can be described as sensory overload. Maybe they even get high but scientists are not sure about that.
They say that’s equivalent to humans as watching a great movie or reading an interesting novel; you just want to absorb as much info as possible. On the other hand, logic also tells us that dogs might be guessing that after a car ride they’ll find themselves in a new place to explore, so excitement might be related to that fact as well.
So, what are you waiting for?! Give your pooch a ride!
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