Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Blind Goldie, who has one of the best noses in the nose business, convinced herself this weekend there was still food in the stack of empty dog dishes.  She kept jumping up on the green Rubbermaid tub (where we store the dry dog food) so she could push the dishes around, hoping (I think) to knock them over and scatter the kibble all over the floor. 

At first I thought she was imagining things, because there was no food in the top dishes.  I said, "Goldie, what are you up to?  There’s nothing there!"  But because she wouldn’t give up — even after I went to get the camera and take this photo — I finally went over to check the dishes.  Sure enough, the fourth dish down still had kibble left in it.

Her nose is really phenomenal, and she rarely ever "misses" when her nose tells her something she wants is there.  She can get obsessive/compulsive about this, and we’ve resorted to "hiding" (we like to think) toys, treats and other objects on top of bookshelves, inside closets, and in cabinets.  She’ll just stand there, outside a closet door, and bark and bark until we either give in (hmm) or until we give up and take the desired object and put it in one of the other buildings. 

We’ve read that the typical dog has about 220 million smell receptors in its nose, compared to about 5 million receptors in a person.  We figure Goldie must have twice the normal number for a dog!

(Click on photo for larger image.)