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Dog’s Hearing
By peace | October 15, 2007
Dogs can hear sounds too high-pitched for our ears. Their hearing is four times better than that of human. Their acute sense of hearing helps us with training.
A dog can locate a source of sound in six hundredths of a second, and it can hear sounds four times further away than a human can. Dogs are also better at hearing high-pitched sounds, and can detect sounds in the ultrasonic frequency range that are inaudible to humans. This requirement evolved in the dog’s wolf ancestors, whose diet of large herbivores was supplemented with small animals, such as mice, that make high-pitched calls. For the domestic dog, however, acute hearing can be a disadvantage: some dogs have extremely sensitive hearing and develop a fear of certain sounds, such as the rumble of distant thunder.
Humans have exploited the keen hearing of dogs to make training and communication easier. Dogs respond quickly to the sound of a whistle or a clicker. For example, shepherds just need a whistle to communicate with their sheepdogs over great distances.
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Topics: All Posts, Animals, Pets |
