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Best friends, but worlds apart | In Focus

Ed Yong's book, Immense World, details how dogs experience walks through an olfactory Umwelt, a sensory bubble concept coined by Baltic-German zoologist Jakob Uexkull to describe each animal's unique perceptual world.
Humans often anthropomorphize animal behavior, imposing their own sensory bubbles onto dogs and forcing them to look rather than sniff, which suppresses an essential part of their caninehood.
Dogs are in a state of olfactory exploration all the time, capable of smelling into closed bags and tracking trails through darkness and around corners. Smells linger in a way that light does not, revealing history to them.
Owners who let dogs stick their heads out car windows appreciate that their Umwelt is different from humans. One researcher concluded it is best to simply let dogs be dogs, leaning into that difference.
To read the work of Yong is to challenge human egocentrism and expand our understanding of animal perception. Animals are leaking sacks of chemicals, filling the air with odorants that reveal their worlds differently than ours.

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