Camera Critters #72 noses and paws

I love dogs' noses. Jenna-the-Labrador was playing with Gentle Dominie yesterday. Dominie really enjoyed it. She can't initiate play now but she's still very much an alert and interested dog. She comes into the kitchen every evening nose a-twitch when I'm preparing supper just in case there are any titbits to be had.

A dog's sense of smell is thought to be 100,000 times better than a human's. Dogs can smell things as diverse as drugs, electricity, underground gas pipelines, insects in woodwork. They can smell week-old human fingerprints. Specially trained Jack Russells are used to detect brown tree snakes in the loading bays of aircraft in Guam. Dogs can even smell illness and can alert their owners to pending heart attacks or epileptic seizures. Their accuracy in detecting some cancers is greater than hospital scanners.

A gentle nudge from a dog's nose is one of the most trusting and loving acts a dog can perform.

I also love dogs' paws. These belong to Jenna - she has amazingly large feet for a relatively small dog. Labradors' feet are slightly webbed making them fast and efficient swimmers. In their original homeland of Newfoundland they were used by the fishermen to haul in their nets from the icy sea. Their thick wiry coats insulated them from the cold. A Labrador's coat can hold an enormous volume of water and onlookers are advised to stand well away when one or more Labradors emerge from deep water unless, of course, they like a cold, usually muddy shower!

Thank you to Misty Dawn for creating this meme and to Misty and Tammy for hosting it.

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