Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Feb 8;13(1):2224.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-29361-x.

A novel task of canine olfaction for use in adult and senior pet dogs

Michael Z Khan  1 , Alejandra Mondino  1 , Katharine Russell  1 , Beth Case  1 , Gilad Fefer  1 , Hope Woods  1 , Natasha Olby  1 , Margaret Gruen  2
Affiliations

A novel task of canine olfaction for use in adult and senior pet dogs

Michael Z Khan et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

While much work has been done in the field of canine olfaction, there has been little exploration of hyposmia or anosmia. This is partly due to difficulties in reducing confounds like training history and environmental distraction. The current study describes a novel olfaction test using spontaneous search behavior in dogs to find a hidden food treat in a three-choice task with both light-phase and dark-phase conditions. The study was performed in 18 adult control dogs, 18 senior/geriatric dogs enrolled in a longitudinal aging study, and a single dog with severe nasal pathology. In the senior/geriatric and control groups, dogs performed with higher accuracy (p < 0.0001) and were less likely to show biased selection strategy (p < 0.01) in the dark-phase than light-phase. While senior/geriatric dogs performed above chance, they had lower accuracy in the dark-phase compared to controls (p = 0.036). Dogs who scored higher on an owner questionnaire of cognitive decline showed a positive correlation with performance in the dark-phase; performance on additional cognitive tests did not correlate with performance in the dark-phase. This task can be used to quantify canine olfaction using clearly defined endpoints and spontaneous behaviors thus making it feasible to compare between and within groups of pet dogs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Portions of this study were supported by the Dr. Kady M Gjessing and Rhanna M Davidson Distinguished Chair of Gerontology.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental set up for the olfaction test. The dog is positioned behind the starting line before the trial begins. Phosphorescent dots are placed on the green circles to designate the treat locations and provide guides on where to place the treats in the dark-phase. Fans are angled toward the starting line behind the treat containers. The experimenter collects a treat from the workbench area before sealing the container and walking to the starting line to present the treat to the dog. The experimenter places the treat in a designated open container on the workbench then places the baited and sham containers in their designated positions, moving from position 1 to position 3 (designated by star symbols).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Kokocińska-Kusiak A, et al. Canine olfaction: Physiology, behavior, and possibilities for practical applications. Animals. 2021;11:2463. doi: 10.3390/ani11082463. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Concha AR, et al. Canine olfactory thresholds to amyl acetate in a biomedical detection scenario. Front. Vet. Sci. 2019;5:345. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2018.00345. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kepecs A, Uchida N, Mainen ZF. The sniff as a unit of olfactory processing. Chem. Senses. 2006;31:167–179. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjj016. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jia H, et al. Functional MRI of the olfactory system in conscious dogs. PLoS ONE. 2014;9:e86362. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086362. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Craven BA, Paterson EG, Settles GS. The fluid dynamics of canine olfaction: Unique nasal airflow patterns as an explanation of macrosmia. J. R. Soc. Interface. 2010;7:933–943. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2009.0490. - DOI - PMC - PubMed