Abstract
Several studies report that olfactory cues play an important role in human life; humans are essentially able to recognize other family members and friends by their odors. Moreover, recent studies report that humans are also able to identify odors of non-conspecifics. The aim of this study was to determine whether dog owners are able to identify their dogs by smell and distinguish the odor of their own dogs from those of other dogs. A total of 53 dog owners (40 females and 13 males of different ages) volunteered to take part in this study. A number of the participants (17) owned 2 dogs; these owners took part in the study twice (i.e., working with only one dog at a time). Sterile gauze pads were used to collect odor samples from the dogs. Each pad was placed in its own sterile glass jar (750 ml) with a twist off lid until the experiment commenced. Participants were asked to identify their own dog´s odor from a line-up of 6 glass containers. This experiment demonstrated that dog owners are capable of identifying their dogs by smell on a significant level. Results of this study additionally suggested that male owners outperformed their female counterparts in the identification process. Moreover, dog owners whose dogs were housed outside had a higher success rate in identification than did participants who kept their dogs indoors with them. The dog owners found it easier to identify dogs that had been neutered, fed dry dog food and bathed less frequently. In general, younger dog owners tended to have more success when attempting to identify their dogs than did their older counterparts.
Highlights
Several studies report that olfactory cues play an important role in human life; humans are essentially able to recognize other family members and friends by their odors
Further studies supported the idea of inferior human olfactory perception through the investigation of olfactory system morphology[7], the repertoire of active genes that express olfactory receptor t ypes[8,9], and olfactory m emory[10]; there is enough evidence to justify the opinion that human olfaction is not as poor as previously thought[5,11,12]
Odors are influential in social interaction settings[21].They are used to perceive emotions[22,23] and influence stress mechanisms[24], and they play an important role in the recognition of individuals[25,26,27]
Summary
Several studies report that olfactory cues play an important role in human life; humans are essentially able to recognize other family members and friends by their odors. Participants were asked to identify their own dogs odor from a line-up of 6 glass containers This experiment demonstrated that dog owners are capable of identifying their dogs by smell on a significant level. 0 men success failure women have a friendlier approach towards child-rearing[38] These abilities are not limited to kin recognition; it is generally believed that women can memorize the odor from newborn children of other mothers. This was demonstrated in one study by Kaitz and E idelman[26], who tested childless women for their ability to recognize infants through smell. Humans can recognize other humans whether they are kin or not; they are essentially able to categorize body odors according to age29or sex[22]
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