Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1887 — The Dog’s Sense of Smell. [ARTICLE]

The Dog’s Sense of Smell.

Every one knows more or less of the marvels of a dog’s sense of smell, but I witnessed an instance of it the other day which, in spite of all I knew about it, astonished me. A long line of carriages was standing in front of a store on Madison street, and as I was passing a small black-and-tan pet dog ran out of the store. He held up one foot and looked bewildered far a moment, and then ran to the carriage at one end of the procession, and smelled the hoof of the right fore foot of one of the horses. He then went to the second carriage and smelled the hoof of the right fore foot of one of its horses. Then he took the next carriage, and then the next, until he had taken the fifth carriage, when he nimbly jumped into it, curled himself up on the seat, and went to sleep. That was his way of finding out which was the carriage of his mistress, who soon afterward came out of the store and got into the same carriage. The fact that the horse’s hoof was made of horn and that it had been plunged into all sorts of mire all over the streets was nothing to him; that particular hoof smelled differently to him from any other horse’s hoof in the world, and no other smell could be applied to it which would efface this peculiar smell. This illustrates another fact that is not so often noticed, that a dog’s perceptions through his eyes are very imperfect and often misleading. I have seen a dog that never relied on his eyes to identify his own master, but would always smell him first, and then showed in an instant that confidence was established. If dogs ever converse, their usual remark to each other at the close of the day is not “What have you seen but “Well, what have you smelled to-day?”— Chicago Journal.

After a man has been indulging in an “elevator,” he finds it hard to settle down to walking. Washington. Critic.