Dogs are incredibly cute, loyal, loving animals, but did you know that they also have super powers?  Okay, so admittedly, we’re not talking about Superman’s flying & X-ray vision abilities or whatever it is that Aquaman does, but dogs are pretty amazing in their own right.  First off, a bit of the basics. Dog noses are highly complex in design and their prints are about as unique as our fingerprints.  Their noses are soft, moist, and spongy, allowing them to capture airborne odors; these scents can be taken in separately through each nostril (they smell in stereo), allowing them to identify the smell, its source, the source’s location, and which way the source is moving.  On top of this, dog noses allow dogs to ascertain & understand the size, gender, health, disposition, friend vs. foe status, mating status, and even recent meals of dogs who have “marked their territory” in the area.  But how do dog noses allow dogs to interact with us?  Dogs can use their super smelling powers to also detect our health statuses, sicknesses, pregnancies, diseases (through detection of toxic VOCs), and emotions (if you’ve ever been comforted by a loving dog when you’re sick or feeling down, you have experienced this!).  Still not convinced that dogs have super powers?  Dog noses can pick up scents in concentrations up to 100 millions times lower than we can and can allow the dog to read scent histories, allowing them to tell what happened to who, and when it happened upon encountering a scent somewhere.  That’s right, dogs can read the past in detail just by smelling an area…and the future to a limited degree, because of how expansive their sensing environment is, allowing them to predict the appearance of people/other animals or occurrence of some things from a long way off.  Lastly, while most of us are aware of how dogs can use their dog noses to detect drugs & explosives, track missing people, and sense the presence of blood from a long way off (hence “Bloodhounds“), did you know that dogs are capable of detecting cancer?!  Perhaps its about time for a few more doggy superheros!