Apparently not. Because next, she walked to the window and let out a definite growl. As she worked on "Superman-staring" her way through the closed blinds, the serious barking began.
I pulled up the blinds to see what we might see. Since there was a full moon, I had no problem confirming there was no cat, raccoon, possum or other critter, and fortunately no strange human being, in the yard. But Vega would not give up. I scanned further. That's when I finally spotted two deer in the neighbor's front yard. To a German Shepherd, that is definitely something worth barking about.
Okay. Deer. I got it.
But what I didn't get was how did Vega know there were deer out there? She was sleeping. She wasn't lying next to the window. And no matter what, it was impossible to see out with the blinds down and closed tight.
At a more reasonable hour, I did a little research about a dog's senses. It seems Vega's nose was likely the sense at work. The scent of the deer actually woke her up and triggered her prey drive which set off her fierce barking. Really.
Here's what I learned: The average dog's nose is tens of thousands of times as sensitive to odors as yours or mine. That's because they possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, while we only have about six million. Plus the part of a dog's brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is 40 times greater than ours.
One dog scientist describes it like this -- a dog's sense of smell is so acute it's like having the ability to catch a whiff of one rotten apple in two million barrels.
So, 3 a.m. this morning. Lights off, windows shut, blinds drawn. Vega smells deer. If you're a dog, the nose knows.
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