What Smell Does a Dog Like Most?

1 Overview

In owners’ eyes this answer isn’t that important, yet some disagree — this answer could change many people’s fate. Yes, those people are the U.S. military.

Though the U.S. military hasn’t developed a super-soldier serum, it invests heavily in research — for instance, the question we discuss today already had an answer from the military before veterinary science fully answered it.

In 2015, the U.S. military secretly funded Emory University, hailed as the ‘Harvard of the South,’ for several military studies; one project asked its neurology professor Gregory Burns to find, as soon as possible,

‘What scent interests dogs most?’

Don’t think the military had money to burn. Imagine if they truly cracked this — how frightening that dog actions could be controlled on the battlefield? Not to mention breeding more obedient working dogs. In short, the research is very meaningful.

The research report

We all know humans trigger specific memories from scents — a wife’s perfume always reminds a man of home.

Professor Burns surely knew a dog’s smell is stronger than a human’s, so a dog’s reaction to specific scents is naturally greater too.

Professor Burns scanned the brains of 12 specially trained dogs, exposing them to the following scents during scanning:

Its own scent

The scent of a completely unknown dog

The scent of a familiar dog

The scent of a completely unknown human

The owner’s scent

To ensure accuracy, the dog scents all came from the anal gland and genital area, while human scents came from the armpits. To further ensure accuracy, the dogs and humans providing scents avoided any cleaning for 48 hours, including baths and hand-washing.

The test found all 12 dogs were most interested in ‘unknown dog and owner scents’; sensing these triggered very strong emotional responses in the brain, with ‘familiar dog scent’ ranked second.

Professor Burns believes dogs are very interested in unknown peers, an attitude consistent with their interest in the owner’s scent,

When the team presented the owner’s scent, the dogs’ brain emotions fluctuated intensely — the very emotion you feel the moment you open the door after work each day.

‘Dogs are very sensitive to the owner’s scent and in most cases more interested than in unknown peers,’ said Professor Burns. The team also found that beyond the two top scents, dogs showed little interest in the others.

This is likely because owners feed and play with the dog daily; in a way, the owner’s scent feels a bit like ‘cheating’ compared with the others,

But who made dogs humans’ best friend? Being best friends, such a reaction is perfectly fine!