The odour of a familiar human apparently¹ lingers like perfume in the animal's brain – where it triggers an instinctive² emotional response, research published yesterday reveals.

 

Our scent³ acts on a part of the canine⁴ brain associated with reward and the strongest reactions are produced by humans that pets know best, say scientists in America.

 

Gregory Berns, of Emory University in Atlanta, said: ‘While we might expect that dogs should be highly tuned⁵ to the smell of other dogs, it seems that the "reward response" is reserved for their humans.

 

'When humans smell the perfume or cologne（古龙香水） of someone they love, they may have an immediate⁶, emotional reaction that's not necessarily cognitive⁷.

 

'Our experiment may be showing the same process in dogs. But since dogs are so much more olfactory⁸ than humans, their responses would likely be even more powerful than the ones we might have.

 

'It's one thing when you come home and your dog sees you and jumps on you and licks you and knows that good things are about to happen.

 

'In our experiment, however, the scent donors⁹ were not physically¹⁰ present.

 

Why do animals avoid pylons¹¹? Because they emit terrifying flashes of light that are INVISIBLE to humans.

 

Dolphins use sponges to protect their sensitive noses while foraging¹² for food on the sea floor

 

'That means the canine brain responses were being triggered by something distant in space and time. It shows that dogs' brains have these mental representations of us that persist when we're not there.'

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