[Dailydrool] How good is a basset nose?

[Anne Savidge]

   Well, Mr. Coren and his book aren't popular here (for good reason, I might add), but he has a statistic that at least gives some idea of how good a dog's nose is. In "The Intelligence of Dogs," he says that human beings have about 5 million scent receptor cells in their noses, a beagle has about 225 million, and a bloodhound has 300 million. That would put a basset somewhere between a beagle and a bloodhound  (not news here), but that doesn't explain or provide a good analogy for how well a basset's nose works.

   Some comparative anecdotal evidence:  I cannot find corroboration of this on the internet, probably because I read the story more a decade before the internet existed, but a German Shepherd working for the Border Patrol found several hundred pounds of marijuana hidden in a commercial truck packed with more than two tons of fresh onions. Even if the amount of marijuana was nearly 1,000 pounds (and I recall the weight being less, though I can't remember precisely how much), that still 4 times as many onions as pot leaves by weight. And as we know, bassets can sniff out things better than a German Shepherd.

 Auntie Anne