Human beings started domesticating animals a long time ago. Dogs began living with human beings for various reasons. People domesticated other animals for different purposes. For instance, donkeys and horses were domesticated because they assisted in transport. Goats, sheep, and cows were taught because they are a source of food to the human race. The case of dogs is not different because dogs serve human beings in some ways. For example, people keep hunting dogs, companion dogs, herding dogs, guard dogs and working dogs (Clutton, 1995). Police officers make use of dogs to perform their daily duties. Even though the input of dogs in the society is overlooked, dogs play a very vital role in the daily activities of humankind.
The interbreeding of dogs done by scientists has resulted in very many dog breeds globally. Dogs are amazing animals. Dogs are regarded as one of the animals which can receive instructions very well. It is interesting to see a dog receive and respond to commands from the owner. Dogs are able to store a lot of long-term memories. The organ within the dog which is responsible for the storage of the long-term memories is known as the hippocampus. Hippocampus is located on the left and right side of the dogs head. It is a character for dogs and other animals to move in random directions. The dog many move for so many miles from home but finally navigate and reach back home ( Serpell, 2016 ). The navigation ability of dogs is controlled by the hippocampus. Through the hippocampus a dog is able to locate the doggy door. Hippocampus makes the dog to develop emotions and is also responsible for other vital cognitive functions. Orientation is directing mental or physical attention to particular stimuli. For instance, a dog may turn its attention to some particular smell or noise. The dog may even turn and move towards the noise or the smell.
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The difference between navigation and orientation is that orientation is triggered by some stimuli while navigation is controlled by long-term memories contained in the hippocampus. Orientation is very useful in dogs in carrying out of their daily activities. For example police dogs use orientation in detecting criminals. Sniffer dogs use the sense of smell to raise alarm to the police during inspection of some prohibited substances. Dogs have the best sense of smell. The sense of smell is twenty times better than human being smell ability. This is because Olfactory lobe is bigger in dogs than in human beings. Olfactory lobe is the organ responsible for coding of scent signals as asserted by Hare and Tomasello (1999). Dogs also have a vomeronasal organ within the nose which detects chemical signals of humans and other animals. It is believed that dogs have a magnetic sense which assists them to locate the direction back home when they are miles away from their owners. Some scientists argued that when dogs are excreting, their spinal cord is usually allied in a north-south direction which helps dogs to locate and sense the compass direction when navigating. Dogs are very useful animals and their input in the world cannot be overlooked.
References
Hare, B., & Tomasello, M. (1999). Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use human and conspecific social cues to locate hidden food. Journal of Comparative Psychology , 113 (2), 173.
Clutton-Brock, J. (1995). Origins of the dog: domestication and early history. The domestic dog: Its evolution, behaviour and interactions with people , 7-20.
Serpell, J. (2016). The domestic dog . Cambridge University Press.
