How many times has it been that you have been annoyed by your dog stopping to sniff every tree, bench and fire hydrant when you just want to go on a quick walk?

Perhaps you grumble at your dog to get around to doing its business faster, but really, your dog is sniffing simply because it is literally stopping to smell the roses.

You see, unlike humans, dogs can learn much more from scent rather than sight.

While dogs are not truly colour-blind as popular myth dictates, they explore the world better thanks to their extremely powerful noses.

A dog’s distinctive wet spongy nose contributes to its improved sense of smell, helping to capture any scents lingering in the surrounding air.

Unlike humans, dogs are able to smell separately with each nostril which helps to determine the smell’s origin.

Within the first few sniffs, they can tell what is out there and where they themselves are.

Upon entering the dog’s nose, air is divided into two different streams by a small tissue fold, with one for breathing and the other exclusively for smelling.

The second airflow enters a region abundant with specialised smell receptor cells.

Unlike dogs who have hundreds of millions of them, humans have about five million.

And while humans clumsily inhale and exhale through the same nasal passage, dogs exhale through slits at the side of their nose which creates air swirls that help draw in new odour molecules.

This also allows odour concentration to accumulate over a few sniffs.

Fittingly enough, a dog’s olfactory system, the system that processes smells, takes up relatively more space in their brains compared to humans.

Dogs can identify and memorise lots of particular scents, even at concentrations up to 100 million times less than what human noses can detect.

You might be able to detect a spritz of perfume in a closed room, but a dog can detect it in an enclosed stadium, simultaneously being able to distinguish its ingredients.

Everything it comes across, be they man, dog, cat or a bag of trash, has a distinctive odour that reveals to your pooch its identity, its location and the direction of its movement.

In addition to having a superior sense of smell, dogs can smell things that are not visible at all.

A completely separate olfactory system called the vomeronasal organ, located above the palate, can detect the hormones that are naturally exuded by all animals, including humans.

With it, dogs can identify possible mates, distinguish between friendly and hostile animals and even alert them to the emotional state of their human friends.

Dogs are even able to tell if someone is pregnant or sick.

Rather amazingly, even things that are no longer in the area can be detected by dogs.

They can tell that someone just walked past their door, detect the warmth of a recently parked car and figure out where you have been and what you have done through the residue it smells.

That fire hydrant your dog loves so much really is a noticeboard, as it tells your dog who has dropped by, what their last meal was and their current emotional state.

Not only can your dog tell the past, it can also predict the future; being able to alert them of incoming threats.

While humans see and hear things at a single moment, dogs can smell an entire timeline from start to finish.

Dogs are capable of being docile and kind to depressed people, while acting aggressive to threatening people, whose anger and stress they can detect due to the hormones these people release.

With adequate training, dogs can alert humans to out-of-sight threats like bombs and even cancer.

While they may not experience the same things you do, man’s best friend still has a nose that shows them a whole new world beyond your physical limitations.