Vomeronasal (or Jacobson's) Organ
I was thinking about this topic last night while writing the last post, moreso because I had been thinking of the many amazing attributes that dogs have. I have met a few people who have full faith in their beloved pet who detected a cancer before it it was diagnosed or onset of a seizure or other sudden decline in health. There's even a story about Daisy who was pretty well known for regularly detecting cancer (Cable, 2014). You can find a link to that one in my references.
For this reason, among many, dogs just deserve a post of their own, or potentially several. Dogs are great, but today I'm going to be more specific about a particular ability. Dogs just know stuff (that's how I'd explain it) and they don't even make a big deal about too much of it, it's just life. Dogs seem to know when we are scared, up to something or just not what they would consider to be enjoyable company. They can't talk or speak the language we are used to but they seem to be recieving a lot of information we communicate or just have available by the way of their Vomeronasal Gland (Kidd, 2004; McGuire, n.d;). It's the gland that they would normally use to make use of the information they get when they sniff from each other's butts and the markings of territory in combination with their other already highly sensory olfactory nerves and other nasal glands. Among other senses, understanding the relevance of these glands has ongoing importance in training, behaviour and health, according to most dog breeders (McGuire, n.d; Kidd, 2004).
The interesting thing is, that we who have dogs, love them as personalities and not objects. We treat them as family and most likely speak to them. They have a reasonable level of intelligence and they have very individual personalities. Interaction with each dog is just as unique and individual, just like how we interact with each other is individual. Even more interesting, is that most mammals do have this organ or gland, including us humans. We have it too. Just about every other mammal who has this gland uses their glands as a part of normal life.
Unfortunately, there are no studies that show us that our glands are active and that we host the ability to translate, recieve or understand information in this way. However, there is also none in the contrary. Would we know if we did have this ability...? Or would we shrug something like that off? It's the kind of thing you normally tell someone is a sign of a mental health issue or disorder. Face it. It sounds like four kinds of crazy. Anyway, it makes me wonder about HSP's -highly sensitive persons. The theory is, that there really is no such thing a six sense but rather a person can be highly sensitive or depending on your source, that they are the same thing. That's a post on it's own... or did I pretty much just post about it then already...?
Interesting, yeah?
Well I thought so.
-Mez
References
Cable, A. (2014). Daisy, the dog who's sniffed out over 500 cases of cancer: She even saved the woman whose research revealed her uncanny skill. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2700561/Daisy-dog-whos-sniffed-500-cases-cancer-She-saved-woman-research-revealed-uncanny-skill.html
Kidd, R. (2004). The Canine Sense of Smell. Retrieved from http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/7_11/features/Canine-Sense-of-Smell_15668-1.html
McGuire, S. (n.d). Understanding a dog's senses. Retrieved from http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/dogsenses.htm