How Dogs Sense Death: What Science Says

 The Enigma of the Relationship Between Dogs and Humans

The closer attachment between dogs and humans has existed for many centuries. Such bonds are different and special, created with care and understanding of each other.

Dogs have been domesticated for a long time and started to develop an enhanced sense of reading human emotions, actions, and even ailments. From this perspective, their amazing ability to detect human emotions, even anticipating death, is found to have a reason.

Studying the World Through the Eyes of a Dog

Scientific work has also studied the abilities of dogs as they look from their perspective. Studies suggest that dogs can sense faint voice or scent changes in familiar persons and therefore are good at recognizing specific individuals.

Studies show that dogs can understand the dynamics of an individual’s body language, the motions of the facial muscles and skin, and changes in their body. This shifted focus explains their 16 readiness to detect scents of sickness or stress and maybe a signal indicating that someone may die.

Scent and the Behavior of Dogs Regarding Death

It is well known that the sense of smell in dogs outranks that of humans by a huge margin, like a scale of 10,000 to 100,000 times. This strong sense of smell is not only helpful for dogs finding their food or even their owners, but also for a wide spectrum of smells including change associated with both physical and chemical in the body.

Some studies suggest that dogs can sense the presence of particular volatile chemicals that human beings emit when they are nearing death. The inability to offer a suitable explanation as to why dogs can smell these compounds so close to death may help to understand the strange relationship that dogs have with death.

Dogs' Reactions to People on the Verge of Death

When the rotating role of a dog owner or a caregiver changes the environment by him or her being the highest authority in the pack, every other member of the pack changes their behavior to suit the new dynamics of the pack. These shifts can bring about an increased attention span, clingy behavior, or even aggressive behavior where a dog might bark uncontrollably in defense.

It can be the case that dogs will whine or try to stay within the personal space of the life-nearing individual until the very last breath that individual is going to take. These actions indicate that not only are dogs cognizant of the ongoing changes but that they are sensitive to the changes as well.

Therapy and Support Animals: Implications for Therapy and Support Animals

The remarkable ability of dogs to predict death and react to it has several implications for their capabilities as therapy and support animals. Their tenderness and being attuned to human feelings allow such animals to be of much help to people in need such as those in hospice or grieving individuals.

Therapy animals have and can ease distress and provide comfort through their presence to families and individuals anticipating a death. Learning the perception and reaction of dogs towards death can in turn assist them in these roles and enhance the assistance they render.

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