Many people believe that dogs have mystical abilities. Dogs are well loved animals but an owner can’t help but be annoyed with a pet that howls and stares into nothing especially on dark nights as this behavior is often associated with superstition beliefs that portends tragic incidents. Dogs are deemed to be one of the animals that have the uncanny ability of predicting death. There is nothing mystic about the dog’s unusual abilities as dog experts put down these abilities to the dog’s heightened senses.

Smell that is a dog’s most important asset is closely followed by the hearing sense. Generally, dogs are kept as companions but some breeds are specifically developed for police and protection work as these animals’ ultra sensitive senses are most valuable asset in this line of work. Dogs can be relied to sound the alarm if an intruder is seen.

The anatomical characteristics of human and canine ears are almost the same but a dog’s ears are not “wired up” the same as humans thus the hearing ability of dogs are 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. Law enforcers that use canines take advantage of the dog’s unique ability to move the ears as often times, the direction of the ears discloses the location of a suspect. However, this does not mean that the hearing sensitivity is lessened if the dog has floppy ears. The hearing abilities of floppy eared dogs are still much more sensitive as compared to the hearing abilities of humans.

The skill of a dog’s ears to pick up sound independently could mean that the dog will be inundated with cornucopia of sounds. In spite of the fact that human hearing is not as sensitive as canine hearing, various sounds heard at the same time will be overwhelming to humans. Dogs though have a unique ability to tone down the impressive hearing ability by filtering sounds. The raucous created by the blaring stereo and the screaming voices of playing children would be intolerable sounds for humans but a dog can peacefully sleep through this kind of din.

Dogs have a unique knack of counteracting their sensitive hearing abilities. All the dog has to do is to screen 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.

Find out more about dog hearing and how dogs hear at Sarah’s Dogs.