RR 2 Dog's Umvelt

I found the material this week not quite as interesting as the weeks prior because I’m not big on the biological standpoints. I understand that they are necessary to have a grasp on all of the course content but I much preferred the nonfiction articles we were reading before. That aside of the more recent articles I found the one about Dogs to be the most interesting, probably because it wasn’t something I had read much about before. The other readings had me feeling like I was back in my freshmen year biology class, but the refresher was helpful. The Dog’s Umvelt reading really brought out the point that many humans take animals for granted. I didn’t know all of the differences that dogs had, how superior their sense of smell is allowing them to tell a lot about the world past present and future based on the smells around them. Many knew that they had a better than average sense of smell but until reading this article I didn’t realize how much better it was or how exactly it helped them. It relates back to the articles on evolution, and how citrine traits help animals to survive. Having a keen sense of smell helped them to survive by informing them of their surroundings. Because these traits were helpful to them they survived leading to off spring that had the similar traits for a good sense of smell and other key traits. Dogs who didn’t have the superior sense of smell may not have known predators were in the area and missed out on the possible dangers that were around them leading to them being killed off over others who could better grasp their surroundings.

Ariel M.