This book made me smell my dogs' feet (one earthy and odourless, one a subtle sharpness of a hard cheese, the other kind of fishy and must)...I then smelled myself, the book, my phone, a different book and the floor.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable meshing of the science of scent. I wasn't expecting it to delve so deeply into the human-side of scent and experiments but these quickly became my favourite sections. The imagery of the humans inadvertently behaving as dogs do, congregating on the same scents to share their finding, the air scenting...hilarious imagery. I laughed out loud a few times.

I read this to get a better understanding of scent and my dogs, and why they behave how they do when tracking or scenting. But I ended up having a much better understanding of the complexities of scent, the human potential, the varied and ocaisonally weird research that is being done into scent - than I did of my dogs and how they relate to scent.

A very entertaining read for anyone who likes to read about science and is also already quite into the scenting side of dogs.

It didn't go much into air movement, scent work, or tracking and that is okay. It is a good partner book to other books that do focus on the scent and scenting dog. This book is more about smells and smelling.

More about smell than you thought was possible to know.

What a fascinating book. It delves into dogs and their noses and into the sense of smell for people and other animals. I believe that you will never look at a dog sniffing something the same after reading this book. There are facts in here about noses. They have so many more receptors than we do so they can smell so much more than we do but it also goes into the science of how we smell. The author actually starts working on testing her nose against her dogs and even improves her sense of smell. Just like anything, use it or lose it. I highly recommend this book for anyone that loves dogs and/or science.

Such an interesting book! It’s got me trying to smell more of the world around me and pay attention to Macie’s sniffing. Highly recommended for anyone with a dog or who loves dogs.

Horowitz is an incredibly talented writer. Really this book is about being present with your surroundings. Being curious and nonjudgmental. Which is exactly how dogs are. We should be more like dogs.

Disclaimer: like the author, "I am besotted with dogs." Super interesting research and explanation of how dogs use their noses (and how humans can endeavor to better use their own).

Alexandra Horowitz is the rare breed of scientist who is also a lyrical writer, as in this line: "And dogs detect us: tracking, trailing, search-and-rescue, and scent-identification dogs pursue the missing, escaping, lost, or dead; the criminal, confused, unseen, or unlucky."

The book is an exploration of paying more attention to smells. I was hoping for more insight and information about how odor moves about in space and how dogs experience smell.

This a lively exploration of dogs' sensory world--from the biology of their noses to experiments that explain why, if you have a regular schedule, dogs can tell when you're about to come home (they time it by how your smell fades). Horowitz uses both science and observations from her own two pets for vivid examples, and you can't beat bits like how, due to physics and mammalian biology, almost all total bladder voiding happens in 21 seconds.