How Do Dogs Hear
September 2nd, 2010 by KittyKitty
Dogs are often associated with paranormal incidents. A dog’s hair raising habit of howling and peering into the darkness as if looking at things unseen by human eyes is commonly attributed to psychic abilities. Many dog owners believe that these animals can predict death. However, these beliefs are not supported by scientific basis and the dog’s amazing abilities are attributed to the animal’s sensitive senses.
Dog owners would attest to the fact that the sense of smell is the most sensitive sense of the dog and the sense of hearing comes a very close second. Generally, dogs are kept as companions but some breeds are specifically developed for police and protection work as these animals’ ultrasensitive senses are most valuable asset in this line of work. Dogs are relied to alert humans to the presence of intruders.
The ears of humans and dogs have an almost similar anatomical characteristics but a dog’s hearing ability is far superior to what humans have. The difference in hearing ability can be due to the type of ears as while human ears are practically immobile because of the way they are attached to the head, dogs ears that are composed of 18 or more muscles are highly movable. The outermost section of a dog’s ears can be tilted, rotated and swiveled independently to capture sounds more efficiently. The ears of a dog is not unlike a satellite dish whose direction can be moved to better capture the sound. The ability to move the ears is a valuable asset of dogs doing police work as the direction of the ears give police enforcers a clue to where a suspect is hiding. The hearing sensitivity of a dog remains the same even if the sound is muffled by floppy ears. Bloodhounds and other floppy eared breeds can still hear much better than humans.
You may think that the hearing sensitivity of a dog would have some disadvantages because our canine friends will be flooded with sounds. Loud sounds that are picked up simultaneously will surely be overwhelming to humans. Loud sounds will not trouble dogs as all they have to do is to filter any unwanted sounds. Humans will surely be pestered by the noise created by playing children especially if more noise is contributed by a blaring stereo but this din will have no effect on a sleeping dog.
Dogs have a trick up their sleeves to deal with their very sensitive hearing abilities. Dogs have this effective trick of filtering sounds. A dog that would sleep through a jumble of discordant sounds but would rouse at once at the crackling sound of the kibble wrapper is showing its ability to screen sounds.
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