The Sweet Smell of Sidewalks

I'm sure it's no news to anyone that dogs smell better than humans. Well... sense of smell. They've got bazillions more chemoreceptors, fine cells topped with hairlike crowns, that inhabit little clefts in the nostril. Interestingly, smells don't really reach the chemoreceptors while breathing, only when the dog stops to sniff-- which explains why I am always waiting for Pappy. Not only is the basic nasal equipment souped up, but a big part of their brain, the olfactory bulb, is given over to processing these smells. We think dollars, but dogs think scents.

I don't know if it's the constant drizzle of aphid pee and caterpillar pellets this time of year, or the four atoms of peanut butter that floated down from a sandwich, but it's all I can do to keep Pappy moving on a walk. Yesterday Pappy was so enraptured by sniffing under under a weed that I got bored, put down his leash, walked about 100 feet, and looked back at him. Finally he stood up, startled, and gave me a look as if to say "how did you do that?"