Ep. 921: Scent, Smell, and Science: Olfaction in Humans, Deer, and Dogs

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The service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE-certified master technicians. And if you need help, we can recommend a shop for you. Ask for O'Reilly Veriscan today. Auto Parts. Woo! This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds no compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at FirstLight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. All right, everybody. You're going to learn everything you ever wanted to learn about. Oh, what's. Shoot, I can't even say the word. Olfaction? Olfaction. Like, how do animals smell? What do they smell? Do humans really suck at smelling? What does a hound dog smell when it smells something? When you. When a deer catches you. When a deer catches your wind, what's happening? Is there any way to have a deer not catch your wind? How good are they? How bad are we? You're going to learn everything you ever want to know about human and animal ability to smell. Giannis Poutelos is here as well, and he's going to ask a lot of very pragmatic, practical questions about how good are hound dogs really, and what conditions make them, you know. I know. When do they do their job and not do their job? And who's going to teach us all this? This is Dr. Lucia F. Jacobs. She's an evolutionary biologist, neuroscientist, and Professor Emerita. Retired but in good standing? Yes. Professor Emerita of Psychology and Neuroscience at UC Berkeley, where she directed the Jacobs Lab of Cognitive Biology. Her research explores how animals use scent to map environments, navigate conditions, and solve complex terrain and solve spatial problems. A world-renowned expert on animal cognition, Dr. Jacobs has studied squirrel behavior extensively. Her PhD. I'm going to point this out. This isn't in your written bio. You've studied the eastern gray squirrel, an animal of great importance to us. Since 1981. Yeah. The Wiley eastern gray squirrel. She's writing her forthcoming book on squirrels and their role in the human race. She's also a professor at the University of Michigan at the University of Michigan. She's writing her forthcoming book on squirrel cognition, examining the surprising intelligence behind how rodents store, recall, and protect thousands of hidden food caches. to get us started well welcome to the show to get us started let me tell you uh a thing that i've always thought and then i i came across your work well i got two balls in the air now i came across your work in a book called super navigators and it's a book about how animals navigate and there was a bit about olfaction and i found your name and that's how i found you um a thing i've always thought and i tell this to my kids i tell them like humans we humans suck at smelling we can't smell anything but now a bear now there's a guy that can smell right it like do we suck at smelling i mean as are are we experiencing a world that we can't even understand what an animal is experiencing when it walks outside and takes away from us of the air or are we not that bad at it yeah so i mean there's there's two kinds of olfaction and there's um ortho nasal where you're sniffing in and you're using that you're like what's out there in the world like that's when i go right yeah right and then there's retro nasal which is not which is asking what's in my mouth and to do and to and when to kind of sniff what's in your mouth you breathe out so you're sending air over the stuff in your mouth out through your nose the nose doesn't really care the nose i i have to ask the what the what's in the mouth that is just scent molecules that have accumulated in your mouth so if i'm not a wine connoisseur but if you are you know they put wine in their mouth and then they breathe they take a little bit and they're breathing out so what they're doing so pretentious though go ahead but anyway but that's what that's what i mean they're they're neuroscientists who gordon shepherd's written some great stuff about it and they're doing a lot of work on it and they're doing a lot of work on this but um yeah and so then it's but it doesn't have to be a physical thing right am i i'm just you don't have any idea you're doing it right okay so you have to be like eating something well if you're if you if you know you eat something um you only got like five taste receptors you know sweet sour you know salt but you've got hundreds of olfactory receptors so you if you put food in your mouth what is it you're going to breathe out and um and it's going to go past your you know your receptors or your nose and you're going to get all that information i mean sure you can also sniff a plate of food and and get a lot of information that would be ortho nasal okay but then once it's in your mouth you breathe out and then you're getting retro nasal so humans are really specialized on flavor um which is you know both taste and and um and odor um and and we've met for hundreds of thousands of years we've been specialized on um processing food cooking food yeah all that and so and so we've got yeah we're we're special uh in that sense but at this oh sorry go ahead no but at the same time we are um we're not we're not clueless about the other i mean about where we are in um in space and i would say mostly it's because people assume we can't do it so there aren't any studies of it and it wasn't till i really started beating the drum that olfaction is being used by um across the animal kingdom to orient in space a lot like importantly um that i start actually we did a study of humans where we had um people in the big room and we had two um like literally q-tips of odors um that were hidden and with all these decoys so they didn't know what it was and we had them you know they were blindfolded we had you know earplugs the only what were the odors the odors we we used actually what um people use for nose work so that's anise and birch it just those are just ones that are those are the classic ones that people use to train pet dogs um and um and but we really had a tiny tiny amount like you walk in you wouldn't think this is smelly room um and then people were like oh my god this is smelly room so we were blindfolded and we in a large room and we would um we took them to a specific place but we we did very meandering path and turned them around around so they really had no idea where they were if they couldn't use path integration to know like where they had come in for the door got it and then they were given one minute to smell that's it and then we would do the same meandering turn them around turn them around bring them back out we take off the blindfold and the ear and the earmuffs and then say okay go back and find that place and the only odor and we did all this you know carbon you're scrubbing the room of odors before and after so we was really we just had those two odors and um and people could find that space again statistically above above chance and and when i did it as you know when you say that space that spot they were standing on that spot yeah it's and and so um no one's ever done that experiment with any other animal um we think that but but but we did it with humans because the humans are easy to train and you know i was in i'm in a psychology department and as i say humans are really good for some things um mm-hmm and the this was an experiment where humans were really we we started doing dogs first and it was like a real pain to train them accurately so we switched to humans and then it turns out humans could do it so but the point of it is so much of our our processing is unconscious that humans are probably orienting to odors all the time and don't know it i see now i was um when i ran the experiment as a subject um i told the students i mean i designed the experiment and i said um i i have no idea where i was i'm never gonna and and i would still go back and i would be back in their accurate place so consciously i thought i didn't know where it was you had a you had a nasal sort of like like the relative odors hitting you this is where you'd have to go yes yes to find that same blend of smells that's that's where in a room exactly and that's the the thing about odors is you think about the world there's all these um odor plumes coming from a forest a stream a lake all that and they've and you know wind direction can be fairly um standard i mean it's going to come down a slope um you know it's going to come along a plane a certain way and so when you've got two streams of odors crossing then that blend can become predictable i mean that's what that's what we proposed and that's what we found in in humans even though without consciousness awareness necessarily what is it like uh what is the smell that we smell best i've heard people explain that we're super good on sulfur um you know i is that is there like is there some truth to that there's like some things that we can detect at parts per parts per million that maybe other things wouldn't know like we're good at certain smells no i i and i'm um i'm i know that i think the smell is the best part of it i think it's the best part of it i think it's the best part of it i think the smell of a corked wine is apparently something that maybe that's the sulfur i'm i don't have those facts right at my fingertips right this minute but they're definitely um people like gordon shepherd have shown that humans are better at um there there are sense that humans can detect better than a dog definitely i mean you know our olfactory system is really specialized for the species like we all have different um components you know we've all got receptor genes but um people actually even in different continents will have different um receptor genes and then plus over your lifetime you can change the the function of those genes by your experience that's called these epigenetic processes and that's been shown in mice so that um and actually in humans um they've they've been there's certain odors that most there there's like i don't know a certain percentage of people can't smell like 20 percent of people and you can take those people and train them for two months and then they can smell it really yes yes and and and there's some evidence that with a lot of training you know um the olfactory bulb um which is the the part of the brain that detects everything um actually changes in volume and and size and can actually increase and in most in all other vertebrates uh humans it's it's it's a little less a little more controversial but um the olfactory bulb has continues to add new neurons new nerve cells throughout life uh and so and in mammals there's really only two places that keep adding neurons throughout life and one is the olfactory bulb and the other is this brain structure that it's massively connected to which is um the hippocampus which is guess what a navigation center oh no kidding huh i had a question about the just the way our sense of smell developed i'm getting from the sort of the whole reason for it is just because we liked to eat different things i mean that no that's actually true i mean we know we but we had a really good sense of smell um before that and um and so that's that's something that i've actually um published on is why um humans are the only great ape that has an external nose so if you think um about gorilla orangutan chimp i mean there's very few great apes species left um there used to be a lot but now there's just five of us um but if you also think about all the um the hominids that came before our genus homo if you think about all the um australopithecus we've got their skulls and you can see from the skull that there's a bone right here the naxon that um you can feel your own bone and it's kind of like a ski jump and um and so if you look at a human skull like your skull you've got um a bone that sticks out um on top and then a um a bone that sticks up on the bottom and so there's actually forensic psychologists or pathologists you can give them a skull that sticks out on the bottom of a human and they can reconstruct the nose of that person like 100 accuracy um whereas they say you can never do that with an ear you know um but the note yeah you know that but the nose because so they and they do that they take a picture of the person before they were you know dead and then they've got their skull and then they you know so they've been really nice controlled studies to show that no shape is extremely individual and it can get reconstructed from from a human skull from the skull so we can go back and look at australopithecus and know they didn't have an external nose when you say an external nose you mean just like this stick out thing yeah right this stick out thing i never thought about that like like a gorilla he's flush that's right that's right and if you look at a gorilla skull it's you know it just it's completely flush yeah or any any of the great apes what is that why why does our nose stick out so that's my that was funny you should ask um so so you can stick it into stuff no well no so um actually you know i'm a squirrel biologist but in um there was only one hypothesis to propose why and that was proposed in 1913 um which was it it um humidifies the air before it hits your lungs it you know if you've got cold dry air you know you don't want that in your lungs i mean that makes sense you know it's it's so it's an air conditioner okay um but i came on the scene and thinking about dog you know animal noses um thing well doesn't have something to do with olfaction and um and the anthropologists had never considered that the human nose had an an olfactory function i mean it was all been the air conditioning hypothesis yeah and so this was like 2015 and um just then i was really lucky there were some really great anthropologists who were coming out and saying you know the old air conditioning hypothesis does not hold we've tested it these assumptions it's not working anymore and um so it was perfect timing for me to waltz in and say you know hey i'm a squirrel person but i think we know i think we need to consider this um this and so basically what i proposed is if you look across the animal kingdom um um how animals orient in space is by using uh stereo olfaction so if you think about stereo vision that's like you know if you can close one eye you've got mono two eyes stereo and predators have stereo because it's for depth perception right i mean you can estimate distance better well 1964 there was great um hungarian biologist who suggested why can't olfaction work that way and in the 60s people were already testing it with right so if you've got they've got antenna right and so if you immobilize one antenna or you cut one antenna and then you give them a really um simple um uh choice test it's called a y maze so you know do you turn left or right to get to the reward um honeybees were they couldn't do it if it was fixed and they couldn't do if it was if it was cut and um and so like to say so just make sure i'm getting this i mean the same way stereo hearing right well how do you describe that no stereo exact stereo audition yeah yeah i can close my eyes and if yanni talks i know he's over here exactly right but if i didn't have two ears right i would just know it would feel like an omnipresent sound that's right not directional yeah so you say with these honeybees you clip one and he can't tell if the smell's coming from left or right right right right and so meanwhile um what's if you um they did it with slugs who have in tentacles you know they don't have antenna but they've got tentacles exactly the same result um they did it they've done it with um hermit crabs which have um not hermit crabs they do i think it was lobsters because they have antennals and the same thing antenna form things and they cut it the same thing and then the really cool result was um garter snakes which have you know forked tongues and it turns out the forked tongue they're they tell away yes yes and if you cut one tine of that forked tongue they they are less um they you know they're slightly disoriented they get lost they if you give them a simple task like you know left or right they're they're worse at it you know um yeah and um and that's because whoops um the what they're doing is you know they are out there with the tongues um sampling airborne odors yeah and they pick it up on the two tines of that tongue they bring it back in they're actually using a olfactory system that's um um called the vomeronasal system and there's two pits in the palate the hard palate of the mouth and they bring the tine in and they literally pick up with chemicals they're bringing it and they stick it into those pits no way yes each little tongue each little prong has his own little pit what yes yes and and um and they deliver it back into his mouth right exactly and that's what um and if you see a snake do it that's what they're doing that's exactly what a snake's doing it's going check to you know sample sample sample and then what is it sample sample about that forked tongue business yeah yeah and it's what's really cool is that um these evolutionary biologists if you look at um there's lizards you know snakes are basically really just specialized lizards and they're lizards that have forked tongues versus lizards that don't have a don't have a forked tongue and the lizards with forked tongues are more mobile they're more predatory they move at greater speeds all that kind of stuff so it's it's um it's definitely oh man i didn't know that have you ever i don't know if you ever noticed this if you let's say you'd like be walking around the woods okay or walking down the road and you'll all of a sudden get hit where you know there's something dead and rotten yeah yeah it is so hard to find it oh that's interesting do you know like you're like you know what i'm talking about dude something is dead but you can't it's a can't it's it's like um it's like hearing a high-pitched noise you can't tell where it's coming from yeah yeah you become aware something's dead somewhere right right right and that but i feel like if you have a dog with you that's some bitches on that smell like in seconds like to him it's not confusing well and it could be because we are really sensitive to that smell and so like you know we're probably um like that that could be something that we are incredibly sensitive to and so it's um all around us um but a dog i mean a specialized to home to track location of scent so they've got a completely different not only do they have twice as many olfactory receptors um as us but they also like inside the nose they have a whole area where when they're sniffing in it's um it like like they open up the the front of their nose um and um and it gets sucked in and it goes straight to the olfactory area it's really like there's a little corral that the air comes in and boom it goes right into that corral and we don't have that ours is kind of flat so you know we are never going to be as good at localizing odor as a dog got it we have a blast every summer fishing swimming camping out shooting bows sitting around the fire uh last weekend we were floating the creek and then doing some metal detecting and we found what i believe to be a very old horseshoe it's all the best and if you're looking for the perfect companion to your summer adventures try the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew from its beginnings in the foothills of tennessee invented by two brothers back in 1948 mountain dew has been a constant and they've got proud american roots it's an american original of citrusy goodness you can celebrate summer and america's 250th birthday with mountain dew whether you're at the grill on the beach or right in your living room sipping on a mountain dew is a great way to start a damn good time enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of mountain dew an american original tasting great since 48 look for mountain dew in stores near you at mountain dew.com that's mountain dew.com your 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drinkag1.com slash meat eater i've had a helix mattress for five years and it's as comfortable as the day it arrived at my house and now i've never slept better what i really love is arriving home after a long hunt where i've been sleeping on a cot or the ground and crashing on my helix mattress it's one of the things i miss the most when i'm out chasing deer helix has over 20 mattress models so you can find the perfect one for you and they deliver right to your door with free shipping in the u.s. there's a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty plus they make it easy to return or exchange your mattress helix is the most awarded mattress brand tested and reviewed by experts like forbes and wired go to helix sleep.com slash meat eater for 30 off that's helix sleep.com slash meat eater for 30 off helix sleep.com slash meat eater you know another one that that hits you like you can't tell where it's coming from real bad is the smell of a skunk oh that's interesting that and that's uh that's just like it's everywhere yeah but nowhere yeah yeah and i have personal experience where i had uh i had a like a cattle hypodermic needle in my garage and i had had some skunk essence in that thing and for weeks it was a family mystery why did the whole garage smell like skunk right no you could walk around the garage all you wanted right and no one was able to go like oh it's coming from right there that's it was just everywhere all at once well i wonder if that's because it's so potent like we are so sulfur we're so sensitive to sulfur um or if whatever that is that it just needs one molecule yeah and um it overwhelms you and well you know so and and how odor moves it's it's mostly through um it's through air temperature actually so convection and people um it's so you so you can put um like if you had skunk in a room with vacuum sealed it wouldn't move at all it would stay in that one place but as soon as it's it's you've got higher then you've got wind i mean tiny amounts of temperature differences will will start with small wind movements and so your garage you've got wind even though it doesn't feel like it yeah and so it's imagine that your nose only needs three molecules of skunk to say there's a skunk and every single place in the garage has three molecules of skunk so there's just no way to find it whereas yeah the dog is like i mean the other thing about odor is that you you habituate to it and so then it becomes a background that and then you can smell um something you can smell the foreground yeah and and in fact when mice the faster they smell the more the they can have like a smell they're looking for and the faster they smell the more it separates the foreground from the background so when a dog starts looking for something you know they'll be sniffing really fast they'll they'll they'll be they're trying to discriminate right and that's that's what they're doing they're trying to you know background one set of smells and foreground you know the other yeah that's funny yanni's dog when his he's got his hound dog for that dog like if you set a duffel bag in my house i have like a little mutt dog it's gonna be like not that it'll give it a passing whiff uh-huh his dog basically has to sit down and and spend 15 minutes on that duffel bag i mean like wow every aspect of that duffel bag that like explores it wow you know it's like so even within that even within dogs they're on a separate yeah they're like these two dogs are on a whole separate trip yeah yeah yeah with what they like with what that's right they're thinking and doing absolutely and a lot of that is breed um you know obviously that's why people have different breeds for different kinds of hunting but um also personality and um and and experience um and you know that's something you don't think about personality experience yeah this is actually a huge area now in animal behavior is a personality and showing that animals have different personalities from the you know and you can measure it throughout an animal's lifetime and they will respond differently to um the same circumstance the same situation um reliably the same animal will respond differently no the same animal will respond differently to the same situation um reliably the same animal will respond differently like the animals who are um actually worked on chickadees um who are bold who explore more sure and and then who who the others who are cautious and who explore more slowly and um as it's even genetically based so you can have a bold father and a cautious mother and they will have chicks some of which are bold some of which are cautious and depending on what the food situation is that year it might be that a bold bird does better and then you'll see the the ones with more bold chicks do better and there's more bold birds in the next generations you know so then someone's got a house cat outside and the bold bird is that a real disadvantage is that a real disadvantage right right right right right right right right hey uh what uh what okay when we smell like it's all through the air right or like you said you taste it yeah but what's going on when a fish smells something is he smelling like yes yes is he tasting it or smelling it or what is he doing well because it's all in the water both i mean both actually like you know fish have can have taste receptors all over their body like catfish so they they can literally taste with their whole body um that's different they're really specialized like something like a catfish a real olfactory specialist theoretically take a catfish and hold his head out of the water and put yeah dunk his body in the water and then he'll be able to taste it and he'll be able to taste it and he'll be able to smell the water and he's conducting some smell type activity he's like delicious yeah with his head out i mean i know that it wouldn't work but like theoretically theoretically i think that right because i mean i know and i think that's true of a lot of i think goldfish catfish but um their olfactory system is incredibly good and they um i mean we're basically fish you know we never we have the same brain as a fish we have the same skeleton as a fish we just like you can take a and and stretch it and and it you know it looks like our skeleton is not that different from a fish skeleton 400 million years ago so and the brain backbone ribs whatever everything and and and most of the brain not the big cerebral cortex but most of the most of the other things in the brain that i've talked about that's all the fish is all there before we left the water so but fish the big difference is bony fish um have um four nostrils so they've got um two sets oh they've got an anterior and a posterior and so they've got water comes in through the anterior it goes through the olfactory epithelium that's us up here that's where ours is goes through it and on the top of the snout and then it comes out the back and comes out the back yeah because they've got like four holes in their in the top of their snout so two are input two are output oh good um so they come in it goes out the back and then it and but what's different about fish is because they can smell anything that is can be um dissolved in water so you can have like big molecules um huge things like peptides that fish can suck in to their nostrils and they've got receptors to um to to tell them what it is um and so you've got aquatic animals like um have completely different olfactory receptors because they can smell tiny things big things as long as it can be dissolved in water and they can suck it in they can smell it anything water soluble and um and then you get frogs which live you know both in water and and in the air and they've got some water you know receptors and some air receptors and you look at their also he can a frog can smell out of like a like a bullfrog can smell up in the air or down in the water right right and they've got they've got like a valve that they can close so that they can smell you know one way or the other um and other animals have done like sea turtles can do that um but uh but then when we came onto land when man you know when vertebrates came onto land and then we never went back you know you can't what happens is we became completely out of the water and then we came back and we became completely out of the water and then we became completely out of the water and then we became completely out of the completely out of the water and then we became completely land-based terrestrial animals right land-based terrestrial animals right land-based terrestrial animals right and then we lost the ability to smell and then we lost the ability to smell and then we lost the ability to smell things in water because you know you you things in water because you know you you things in water because you know you you can't snuff up you're not going to smell can't snuff up you're not going to smell can't snuff up you're not going to smell anything on the water and we became air anything on the water and we became air anything on the water and we became air specialists specialists specialists so once and so if you look at the you so once and so if you look at the you so once and so if you look at the you know the genome of land animals it it know the genome of land animals it it know the genome of land animals it it went from the fish genome to the frog went from the fish genome to the frog went from the fish genome to the frog genome which is kind of 50 50 and then genome which is kind of 50 50 and then genome which is kind of 50 50 and then it became the you know the land genome it became the you know the land genome it became the you know the land genome which is all air which is all air which is all air um air genes um um air genes um um air genes um and um so that's when we became really and um so that's when we became really and um so that's when we became really specialized for um specialized for um specialized for um orienting orienting orienting only in air only in air only in air and but that means that our nose can and but that means that our nose can and but that means that our nose can only detect only detect only detect little molecules that are volatile that little molecules that are volatile that little molecules that are volatile that are in the air we can't detect are in the air we can't detect are in the air we can't detect big big molecules because guess what they big big molecules because guess what they big big molecules because guess what they don't travel in the air don't travel in the air don't travel in the air so um so so um so so um so what i what i what i what i what i what i realized was um realized was um realized was um all these other animals are using antenna all these other animals are using antenna all these other animals are using antenna for stereo olfaction and they need it to for stereo olfaction and they need it to for stereo olfaction and they need it to orient And it turns out that basically what this external rubbery mammal knows is a couple of tubes. And the physicists have shown that if you suck air through a tube fast, what happens is it kind of acts like an antenna. So an antenna is where, you know, you can, if you want to orient space, you want to have a sample here and a sample here, right? So you don't want the samples close together. You want the far apart. And so if you've got tubes on your face and you suck in air fast, the air comes from further away. It's just, they did this purely with tubes, physics, my collaborator John Camaldi did this. And so. So what I proposed is that humans are basically tube noses. And the other tube nose group is the seabirds, albatross, and the shearwaters. Those are called literally the tube nose, prosolariforms are called tube nose seabirds. And those seabirds, like petrels, albatrosses, they are specialized. They spend most of their life in the air. And they're looking for, you know, food on the ocean, which is like, as Gabby Nevitt says, like a needle in a haystack. And the way they orient, and she's done work on this, is they orient to a smell. So there's, when krill eat phytoplankton, they emit disulfide, what was it? Anyway, they emit a sulfur compound. Okay. And the birds can detect that. Okay. Okay. Okay. And they can detect that from far away. And then they come in because. No way, really? Yes. And that means, because the krill means that's where they're going to find fish and food. You're kidding me. They can smell krill under the water somewhere by what's coming up from the surface. It's being released. Yeah. It's a disulfide compound. Whatever it is, I won't have heard of it. No, it's methyl disulfide. I'm just trying to show off my chemistry, which is like, I can't. Just remember that one is methyl disulfide. No, it's. And birds actually, there's studies now in seagulls and homing pigeons and little songbirds that if you block their olfactory system, they are disoriented. Really? Yes. Yes. No, it's. And birds. And people say, that doesn't make sense. But then there's atmospheric winds that are carrying odor from like continents, which is actually a lot of information. How he can find his way back home. back to land right so so anyway so there's the tube-nosed birds and so what i proposed is humans are the tube-nosed apes we you know we were the only ape that have this thing and and then since there's been studies showing that yeah if you block one nostril um with humans when um if you if you blindfold them and put them to track um a coconut i mean a chocolate trail across some grass that um if you if you block one nostril or you swap the inputs to not so they put a big mask that either blocks one or swaps it this was gnome sopel's work at berkeley it was great work um that the humans are disoriented so yeah and so humans can orient just like a dog you know a trail i mean they can track um and and then ken catanion did this work with um moles where he put tubes in their star-nosed moles he put little tubes in their nose and all they had to do was you know move a few centimeters to find an earthworm and if you if you block one tube or if you cross the tube so you've got the inputs coming across completely disoriented the mole is just like walking over the earthworm and can't find it so that shows you that it's not just um the amount of time that you have to do it it's not just the amount of time that you have to do it it's the amount of data that's coming in it's where is it coming in on the left or the right so it's just like you were saying about your ears i'm going to be walking through the woods navigating in a whole different sense here in two weeks when september kicks off you know i would you know here's the deal though about the birds uh a lot of like if you're hunting a lot of stuff you need to be very aware of the wind because you got to come in from now when or else it's going to smell you but when you know no one plays the wind with turkeys well that but but turkey actually well turkey vultures are really good no i'm talking the turkey turkey yeah there's no maybe it's just a thing people miss there's no sense of needing to hide from a turkey's nose that's right and and that's probably true though you think that is well there's more work now birds little songbirds um they avoid nest holes that have if you put a predator odor in there um there's work work now about mate choice and birds even like zebra finches little desert birds that are choosing mates based on odor um so you think it's possible that a turkey could smell you oh i but i think it's it's i think vision and olfaction we all have we all have both and it and what you use depends on who you are and the context and so a turkey has got such great incredible vision you know color vision incredible acuity and hearing you know and they're probably getting 90 of their uh but i bet i can't i wonder if there if there isn't some dude that'd be some good study for you to work on is can a turkey get a whiff of a person yes yes and change its course because it winded you and we are we assume that they have no ability to catch your wind yeah um i i would say it's it you know it isn't no ability it's kind of like um if you look at like david um next work on wolves they start by its olfactory and then at some point they you know they they know from the concentration that they're right on they're very close and then they're going to switch to vision yeah and i'm sure you know this from your you know your dogs that so it's not like they don't have vision they don't have vision they don't have vision they don't have one or the other um and and sight hounds of course are going to be more visual um because they're big open plain desert breeds right so it's going to vision makes more sense than olfaction because um when things are dry um that's you know that's bad for olfaction you olfaction you want i was one of his questions yeah you want it cold and and um well actually warm and humid is perfect um but but definitely humid and um yeah we know and i'm looking at him to see if this clicks with with houndsman lord well yeah i'm and i'm i'm just reserved because i i don't know if we're gonna are we getting are we gonna get into the hounds and stuff before we get to the hound dog question i think we've we had this one in just when we were discussing having lucia on but like does a speaking of animals and their relationship to you know wind and smelling each other and the predator prey relationship does a like a mountain lion know that it emits an odor and thus it has to be downwind when it's approaching a prey animal yeah do they play the wind absolutely absolutely they i mean because they're incredibly i mean they're you know mountain lions are very different i mean felids are gonna use odor less than canids so so wolf a wolf a coyote is going to be using odor very differently than a mountain lion which is ambush predator um so they're going to be up and perch right going to ambush um that they're going to use odor and they're going to certainly be aware of their own odor you think so oh yeah oh yeah i mean i mean we live in this um i was just thinking this about this um it's like the odor internet you know the world is is basically an odor landscape that we're we're stupid about um but all these other animals they i mean the plants i have got their own odors the plants are communicating the animals are you know communicating and um and what's what's actually interesting is that sometimes um predator odor um is actually attractive to a prey animal because they recognize that is not a scary that that predator is not a and so i'm gonna you know i'll be attracted i'm gonna get more information by spending more time with that predator and and so you can do the same experiment where that another individual is like no no i'm i'm a little smaller and that's a dangerous predator to me so if i smell that i'm going to be out of here but um what was that there was a study this is insane in gray kangaroos in australia that were um they gave them and which are like 60 60 100 pound animals you know they're big right um they're if you just a naive one um they're just a naive one and they're just a hundred pound animals you know they're big right was not at all um put off by the smell of a um tasmanian devil which is you know an aggressive carnivore it's much smaller but it's aggressive um but if you gave them um tasmanian devil scent they they they didn't avoid it this is like an experimental situation but if you gave them the scent of tasmanian devil who had eaten gray kangaroo it was incredibly aversive so the kangaroo yes the kangaroo knew he's smelling that little combo that that predator that 12 kilogram predator eats me and therefore i'm going to avoid that predator and they didn't before so i mean that's the kind of information that is in scent okay but see people there have been hunters that have tried to switch over to a vegetarian diet that's interesting uh-huh yeah they're crazy but my dad doesn't know what to do with it he's like i don't know what to do with it he's like i don't know my dad had a buddy my dad had a buddy they would eat all kind of apples yeah drink all kind of apple juice before both but i think that was so that when they would pee they would make a scent that would be attractive to deer being apples thinking about seeming like a not me yeah he's right about that he would just seem like how long would it take for me to eat a completely i don't know vegetarian diet i think you should go vegan for two months no no i mean deer eats deer until right until a deer would be like oh no worries don't worry about that guy you know you also have you know in general if one per human is not eating um eating me but everybody else is uh you know they might say you know what i'm just gonna be it's not on an individual basis but you know i that's an interesting that's an interesting question i think if you had if you were tracking one particular deer like you know just you had to individual relationship and then you um you went vegan for six months i mean i don't know you know people do these experiments you know like how long does it take for you to be able to smell garlic on your breath or something you've been eating i mean i it comes out you know all that everything you're eating is coming out through your skin um apparently um this actually i read that that in vietnam war the vietcong could smell american troops coming in because they smelled like as what they said spoiled milk because they were cheese eaters and that wasn't in the vietnamese my dad my dad said that he was in world war ii he said the smell of germans make the hair on the back of his neck stand up yeah but he thought it was this he thought they had a kind of cigarette and they had you know the crowd the whole crowd thing right he thought they had a kind of cigarette and he could smell that cigarette and he said to make the hair on his neck stand up and he said he could smell their food and make the hair on the back. And he said, if you walked into building yeah like when you were pushing them out and you came into the buildings that they were in he said it was just like the like the worst because just the association association right that's right that's right no that's well that's why and i bet you know 40 years later i bet you if you could bottle that smell and give it to him he would immediately be back in that in that situation i mean this is why oh he never yeah he never i can tell you that his his hatred stayed yeah through life yeah so it would have been a bad smell yeah bad smell right right no i mean olfactory ptsd you know people real real thing you know combat smells and and things like that yeah before we do our hound dog chapter i got i got a i got another deer question for you well two deer questions would it make sense and you're in a weird position now where you're giving like hunting advice what like did you pick picture a world in which you like a world in which you acclimated like like yanni has a property in wisconsin the family place they like to hunt deer on is there a world in which you somehow broadcast throughout the year you had a canister that just broadcasts human odor so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year you had a canister that just broadcasts human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human odor throughout the year and that you would create a whole new world for the deer so that the landscape was just a wash in human all of his clothes and stuff in a tree and just had to be that that tree just smells that way and then it would be that later when you're there they wouldn't even know because it always smells that way um the thing is that they it's um you're gonna walk in and um and they're gonna say oh there's the guy who ate a hamburger yesterday yeah it's a fresh scent you know it's not like you're never gonna like because they're picking it apart too much but i mean at the same time you know if you go to like galapagos islands where they've never had predators you walk up to any animal and and and you know it's cultural i mean whether or not they're afraid of um i have friend who studied elephants and um they um the messiah used a certain um kind of um you know clay it was kind of a decoration but it would you know had a scent and as soon as an elephant smelled that they were out there because the messiah were you know elephant hunters so i mean it's association um now what you could do is um i mean if you say that you there was something like that the deer liked that they that was their favorite food or something like that and and you put um you could do an association between your scent and their favorite food you could maybe counter condition it um so that they're going oh that's good you know that's that's a good thing that's a good particularly um but you know the first time one deer sees you with a gun and gives that signal um it's all over you know because all the other deer are gonna because your scent is around and the other deer is around i mean no and and you can um there's there's um animals have to learn you know sometimes who predators are and that's been a really good thing for me to be able to do is to be able to be able to do that and i think that's been shown in ferrets that they you know they have to um they learn like the first time they have a bad experience or they see another adult with a bad experience um they go okay that's predator i didn't know now i do and i'm never gonna forget that yeah um and you can do there's like um the study of blackbirds in in europe where um they the naive bird in the lab never heard and never seen a predator and then you have another blackbird and you have a stuffed owl and the the one who's experienced sees the owl and gives an alarm call and it only takes one trial for the bird who has never seen an owl to see the owl and go oh that's a predator and from the rest of us you know carries it with them and sees an owl it's going to give an alarm call and every time it gives an alarm call a naive bird's going to see what's it looking at owl that's an owl and you can um and they did and then they took away the owl and they put a milk bottle there and they trained um and they like played the alarm call to a milk bottle and the bird in the lab says oh that's a predator and really yes you could train them to think that a milk bottle was trouble they hear you know they hear that that it's like all they need is a call and so they did that for seven generations training you know blackbirds to be afraid of milk bottles so i mean it's it's the same thing an odor is yeah that's crazy because then you got like you got like generations of birds they've never seen a milk bottle do anything bad but they just carry it with them that a milk bottle is no good because you know the thing is if that's information you don't want to have to learn by trial and error if you've got someone in your population says that's a predator and dangerous it's like good enough for me you know i mean it takes a lot so all the deer in in your property they already have know very much that humans are you know you're not a predator you're not a predator you're not a predator you're not a predator 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lemproducts.com and use promo code steve15 to get 15 off plus free shipping that's lemproducts.com promo code steve15 lem built for the work there for the journey so on this now on the deer chapter yeah let's since we're here let's stay on the deer the deer chapter so let me hit with a couple like uh let me hit with a couple things that are sort of that float around in hunter legend okay one is that there's this product that was on the landscape for a long time what was this idea that you could wear certain clothing hmm with lighting and you could wear certain clothing like what is it carbon what's in there charcoal oh you could wear like this charcoal impregnated whatever no it's activated carbon activated okay activated carbon you could put up clothes on yeah yeah yeah yeah and deer wouldn't know you were there well do you buy that i mean most of your odors are coming out of your hair and i mean so to humans That's the other thing. Humans, we are more scent glands than any other great ape. We are the smelly ape. So we've got, and they're all concentrated in our hair, in our armpits, groin. So we are just, you know, we're just walking bags of scent. So if you're going to wear anything carbon blocking, you definitely want to be wearing a full head hood, I think. A head net. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So there's some that makes a little bit of sense to you. It makes a little bit of sense, yeah. Okay, there's another one that you do. But can I just say that I bet it depends. It wouldn't take much for a deer to realize, oh, that's a carbon scent, and it comes with a gun. And then they associate this expensive suit with a hunter, and then it's all over. So can you explain what's going on there? Is the scent being eliminated? Is the scent being masked? Well, it's. I mean, you're masking the human body odor, maybe. You're not masking the face. So you're not, like, removing it. Because I think the whole thing about with this carbon technology was that somehow it was soaking it up. I mean, it would be soaking it up. Really? But on the inside, yeah. I mean, it would be like a filter. But for one thing, if you've got any exposed skin, you're constantly emitting, you know, volatiles. But also, the suit itself has an odor, right? I mean, it's not. The outside of the suit is not odorless. And so all you need is for one deer to figure out that suit smell means a hunter. And then that deer to give an alarm call to a suit. And then all the other deer know that suit is a predator. I see. So, I mean, you have to do some experiments on this. But, yeah. You could go either way. There's another one that goes, like, you create. You put a natural odor down in such. Enormous quantity. Like, let's say you take, like, they call it, like, a masking scent, okay? Take something, like, well, it's not offensive to deer, but it smells strong. Right. So, let's say, like, a female. The urine from a female deer that's in heat. Oh. Where, like, it's attractive. Yeah. But also, it's super powerful. Right. Right. And he won't be. The deer won't be able to find my smell. Right. Right, right, right. That's interesting. And this is applied in different ways. Drown it with this odor. Right. And he won't be able to pick my odor out from this overpowering odor that I'm putting here. Vanilla has been popular lately. Like, it's this overpowering vanilla that's supposedly. Well, that's interesting. And vanilla is very interesting. But I just want to say, it's kind of like the skunk in the garage. It could be that the male, the buck, is so sensitive to female, you know, in heat that it just addles his brain. And, no, but, man, he's got to be. He's got to be tracking females across huge distances, right? So, he's going to be incredibly sensitive to that. So, if you. So, that would be an odor that you might be able to just overwhelm his system because his. Unless his brain habituates. Like, he goes crazy for it. Well, he does, but then he slows. There's no female here. And then it turns into background. It's like people who live next to pig farms, they can't smell it after a while. Yeah. You know? They go away. And there's, like, people study this because, you know, there's lawsuits about pig farms. And I think if you go away for a couple of years, you come back, you can smell it again. Because you've got, you know, like, turnover in your factory system. Oh, it happens to me every time. Our water at the house is pretty sulfur-y. Yeah. If I'm gone for a week, my first shower back, I'm like, whoa. Yeah, exactly. Second shower, it's just like normal again. You've habituated. I've forgotten. Right, right. So. But never mind the dough and pee thing then. Let's take vanilla. Vanilla. Or whatever. So vanilla. You would put a smell down, and it would be, like, this just wall of smell. Yeah. And it would hide the human part. Well, vanilla is interesting because it actually smells like milk, mammalian milk from, like, human milk. This has been, like, that's probably maybe one reason we're all attracted to vanilla. That's just interesting. The vanilla is universally considered a very pleasant odor in human culture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, again, you know, it's also the problem is you're hunting for dinner, and they are trying to save their life. So you've got completely different motivation here. And they're going to be much more conservative unless there's some reason they're not going to be because they're really hungry or something like that. Well, look, just speak to the mechanics of it. The mechanics. Like, could you put, from an animal standpoint, never mind deer, just like, you know, like, it's like an animal, a mammal. Right, right, right, right, right. Overwhelm. Could you overwhelm them so much with one odor that they're not finding another odor? Like, let's say this. Let's say I'm baking a pizza in my oven, but then I take an ounce of skunk smell and pour it on the counter. Right. You're not going to come in and be like, oh, I see all the skunk, but I get a little pizza too. You're just getting skunk. Exactly. So is it theoretically? Is it theoretically possible that you would replicate that scenario and have it be that you're putting out so much vanilla or piss or whatever, or zucchini bread, that a deer is like, all I'm getting is zucchini bread? No, I think it's possible. At the same time, that's an area they wouldn't want to hang out in because it's too dangerous because you're just making them odor blind. And that's their. And, you know, when I've studied kangaroo rats, I radio transmitted, you know, and tracked them in the desert. It was so interesting. On a windy night, the kangaroos will not come out of their burrows. And I think it's. Yeah. And I think it was because, I mean, partly it's the sound, but I think it's odor. It's like you've got turbulent. Suddenly, they don't know where the coyotes are. Got it. And so I think of deer, I bet on a very windy day. So what's your experience? This is hotly debated. Okay, that's interesting. What is it? I've been with elk as an elk guide for a decade. Yeah, we definitely felt like extreme wind conditions would sort of, would settle the movement a little bit. And then they got deer, but here's where this gets tricky. They got deer on collars. Yeah. That are like. Yeah. Next to the eye of a. That are like 20 miles from the eye of a hurricane and they don't change tune at all. Well, it depends. Like they go about their business. Yeah, but see, so I would say, again, context. Where, you know, is that wind coming in reliably laminar from one direction or is it like, you know, turbulent? So hurricane is one thing, but I mean, they're actually, if there's a study of blue crabs orienting to odors in, in, in, in streams, artificial streams, they're more, they're more accurate orienting to, in turbulent streams than, than laminar flow because they are adapted to their whole evolution has been life is turbulent. Yeah. And so I. I mean, it depends where it is. Like if, if they're in a windy habitat that they, they know how wind works and they've learned about it, versus a forest elk, more forest. No, actually that's not true. Right. They'd be a more open white tail, the more, more closed. But, you know, you imagine a forest animal where it's not expecting a lot of wind movement would be more freaked out by. Well, I think both of those animals, elk and deer live in a wide variety of habitats. Both could be open or closed and probably the one that lives up on near Choteau, Montana on the, um, uh, what do you call that? The Rocky mountain front where the wind blows a lot. Yeah. They like learn to figure out a way to deal with it. Right. And use their olfactory senses to deal with it. But when the wind blows like that in Wisconsin, maybe the deer lay low a little bit. You know, what works best for them from a, from a predator perspective, like a human predator perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They are at a huge advantage. A huge advantage in a swirling wind. Oh yeah. Huge advantage. Interesting. Oh. And. I mean, people will just be like a swirling wind. You're like, nevermind. Oh, because they, no matter what you do, they can smell you. You're not going to get up on them. Yeah. You're not going to get up on them in a, in a non, like what you want is a, what a predator wants. Right, right. Is a very strong West wind. Right. Not very, but like a consistent West wind. Exactly. Exactly. You're like, okay, I know exactly what I'm going to do. When you get there and it's like hitting this cheek and then it's on the back of your neck, you're like, it's never going to happen. Right. And so that's. They know everything that's going on. And I bet that's why this is so controversial because I bet everyone's reporting different things based on where they are with different wind conditions. And you've got, you know, um, animals adapted to local wind conditions. And so sure in Wisconsin, it's this, but in, in that great, you know, that place where the Rocky mountains are, it's that. And so everyone, the deer are going to have different strategies. They're going to learn different. The fawns are going to have learned from the parents. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, it's all, I mean, they're long lived animals, social animals. So there's a massive amount of social learning going on. I'm sure they're learning from the adults. In our mind, like in our mind, what they like is without being able to interview them, speaking of a deer, a white, let's say a white deer, what he likes, he likes an obstruction to his back. Yeah. Huh. Okay. Uh-huh. Something behind him. Yeah. He can see out here. Yeah. And he's in a spot that has swirling wind. - In our mind, that's like where he's comfy. - That's interesting. - You know, then he's like, chill so this is what you do you set up artificial swirling wind on your property and all the deer come in and they love it and it's swirling wind and then you go out just turn it off this big box galore okay now we're gonna move into the hound dog sounds like a very like big box like very expensive to set that up circulating systems 40 acres you know all right you ready for hound questions this is the hound dog chapter the anticipated hound dog chat yeah i don't know if i these are in order but we'll just start with what we have for one yeah well let's start with the cold nose dog and the hot nose dog and i think the nate explained that yeah yeah yeah so it's basically um a dog that um hot is like a recent trail and the cold is like it's been there for a while yeah and so there are dogs out there that are in the same pack yeah that one will see find a mountain lion track yeah but it is old enough to where they smell it and they just no reaction whatsoever that we can see yeah yeah they know and they keep going right another dog in the same pack goes over there that has the cold nose yeah and gets on it and yeah you know here it starts and they're off to the races and it could be right some people think that they run it they don't like that because they're running a three-day-old track and you know lion could be you you don't know it could be in two counties over right anyways but so but what cause is that so i mean definitely you said nature nurture that's definitely both i mean you're gonna have different personalities dogs obviously have different personalities and they have different experiences and so you've got a dog who has successfully been paying attention to cold and and what's cold is you know you've got all this dead skin falling down you've got um all this this heavy molecules that are falling off you and the mountain lion and it's all falling into um onto the trail and um the more the the heavier the molecules are and the more the trail has texture to it it's not like a you know a rock surface but it's like you know grasses vegetation that kind of stuff that's going to hold those big heavy molecules longer and so it's going to be it grabs onto them it grabs onto it there's yeah literally you know has placed for for it um the other thing that um i mean um and so so there's going to be a lot of signal there and that might be a dog who's had a lot of good experiences um with that on that on that and it could be like he's caught him before right he's like i don't know i've picked up a smell that's right this old and caught it and exactly and and that's a huge positive reinforcement you know it's like dog is going to remember the other thing about olfaction memory is that they're you know we don't forget odors and dogs don't forget odors and they i mean that the odor comes into the brain it goes right to your emotional centers and so it even in humans you know odors are encoded really deeply and emotionally so i mean so that's why i can give you the smell of your grandmother's kitchen and you can you know you recognize it um and so anyway so you can have a dog that had a really good experience catching you know doing succeeding on a hunt using those heavy molecules um and so um and also it could be like i said about the chickadees this would be exactly the same thing it'd be a really interesting study to do um to study a pack that had these different personalities because it could be that you've got kind of an adhd dog that just wants to you know trail nose in the air and the other one's like no i'm just going to let it go and i'm just going to let it go and i'm just going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go and i'm going to let it go you know absolutely will jump on anything and the other one's slow and and actually learns faster because he doesn't jump on things you know he will learn a problem fast and so you could have a slow deliberate personality that say you know what i am going to specialize in these heavy molecules um and and i'm assuming you're going to tell me that it could be nature or nurture like it could be passed down through generations in their genes because they succeeded running cold tracks and then you could also teach that to a dog yeah i mean i think what you've got you know probably um you've got a pa you know a litter puppies you might have cold you know future cold nose future hot nose in the in the litter but then depending on their experience um how they're trained what their ex you know did they have a really good experience using that strategy then they're you know then what they're going to do i mean what any predator would do is that they keep working on that you know they get better and better and the rich get richer right and then and then another dog it's like well that never worked for me or that i had one frustrating thing i i lost it i'm gonna whereas i i trail and i pick up you know i do this fast sniffing in the air and i'm that works for me so i'm gonna do that um you know but it could be that um i mean interesting to ask your um people like what else do those dogs vary about like you know are there what else are they doing differently yeah that's interesting you know yeah what other attributes do they have yeah do they do they rush the gate does this one you know like let's say you're like i seriously like you got a cold nose and a hot nose dog where you put them all in a situation where they're like a minute behind it are they do they still have different attitudes yeah or do they kind of like coalesce around some level of excitement yeah yeah or is he always like no and if you get slow and easy or you give them a problem they've never seen before you know there's a lot of work now on you know problem solving and dogs and how do they how do they um tackle it you know do they do they have different strategies to attack to tackle it i bet i bet the cold hot nose is like is a problem-solving dog but i bet the cold hot nose is like is a problem-solving dog like just a signature of maybe differences in um like overall problem-solving strategy and that's what that's what you that's what we talk when we talk about animal behavioral syndrome or personality it's like a lifelong way of a track of attacking a problem basically i got a buddy who's got a beagle and his dog's like a his dog's a blood trailer so it can find a wounded deer yeah yeah and one day we put it on a deer and it knew the path like 100 percent yeah because we need to the past too because we we lost the blood trail yeah yeah but the dog just lost interest and he said oh interesting he knows he won't find it oh really yeah so it's like funny he's like he knew where it went but he's like he knows he'll never find that was explained to me because i called out a uh you know a deer tracking dog a few years ago and the same thing happened we kind of just ended up doing circles and it was a lot of just you know dead ends and eventually he said i think that that deer that we're trailing or trying to trail is not wounded enough that it will die because it emits right from its through its hooves it emits a scent that says i'm wounded i'm in danger i'm dying whatever it's got that's what that blood that's that's what the dog's trailing yes it's not trailing the blood exactly it's trailing corticosterone i mean the stress hormones yeah and actually that's interesting the dog's like he's not hurt there was a study in gerbils where they had one gerbil that i think was stressed or killed by a cat or something and and they they took blood from a gerbil who had been attacked and one who hadn't been attacked and another gerbil could tell the difference between the two the blood really yeah so that i mean so that because you've got you know i you know you've got stress hormones coming through your blood it's coming out it smells like it yeah right all right differences in scent molecules like conditions dry ground versus wet warm versus cold rising versus steady temps rough ground versus soft ground you kind of said already the rougher the ground is the more scent molecules it traps right but that's good for you know that would be good for tracking but not for trailing right so if tracking is the ground trailing i mean that's how you use it too i don't know what determine okay i know but air air air dog the dog that keeps his nose in the air and a dog that keeps his nose on the ground right right and so turn for that i mean we the search and the search dog is the world it's like tracking tracking nose down uh trailing yeah like we had a guy on the trains apprehension dogs and he talked about like yeah yeah a dog that goes into a building to find a suspect yeah his nose is in there yeah right dog that like you're like a guy a suspect last night ran off into the woods yeah and now we're wondering where he went right that dog's nose is on the ground that's exactly it i think it depends on conditions too i think that at times hounds yeah sometimes we'll have their nose down yeah if the conditions get right and they don't have to have their nose down there they can sense when their head is up they can move faster right they will switch to that as long as they're still getting that well and and so we did a study of search dogs um in california where it's cold and and wet in the morning it is in the east bay and then it's hot and dry in the afternoon and then cold and and damp again in the evening and so we we're using search and rescue dogs really really well trained and very carefully controlled we had like a quarter mile track with a human walking on it and and and waited at the end and uh and then we just we um measured the um the location of the dog gps and we also developed this thing to measure whether the head up was head up or down and we every 10 meters we we took a weather station and we measured the wind speed temperature everything and so and what we found was it it basically the they were more accurate when it was cooler and um and and more humid so that definitely um and the reason And probably faster, too, then. Well, so that was interesting. What we found is that when they started off, so we would, these are search and rescue, so we'd give them a sniff of a T-shirt or something. And they take off at first. Once they have the scent, they know exactly where they're going. They start off fast with trailing, air, in the air. But then if they start losing it, then they slow down. They're still trailing, and they slow down. But then they start, you see them circling. So after, if they slow down, and now they're circling like 10, 20 yards away from the trail. And they're still trailing, but they're circling. Then they really lost it. Then they may move up to like 40 yards away from the trail. They're circling, and they're on the ground. So, and what we found is when you had the, like, here was a trail, and there was a big wind coming. The actual, there was a lot of probably these heavy molecules blown down off the trail. Because there was this one place where the track went next to a small hill. There was wind coming down, and all the dogs kind of scooped down. So they didn't stay on the trail. They scooped down. Oh, really? Yeah. So like. They were. They were aware to smell land. They, exactly. They, and they're so accurate. That's really interesting. So, but that, so there was like three strategies, you know. And basically, when you know what you, you know exactly where you're going, you're, you're high speed air. And then if you start not sure, you move away from the trail. And now you're, you're using air, but you're moving, you know, you're kind of circling, you're, you're away from the trail. Once they start circling, they've lost it. They're looking to pick it back up. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And that's exactly what you see in all animals, butterfly, you know, and moss. I mean, all animals that orient to space, humans, we've done this in humans, in virtual environments, you know, it's casting, you know, they're trying to find the plume. And so, and yeah, and then, but they didn't really do the, the, the head down to the ground unless they were really lost. And, and then they're looking for like some big, heavy molecules. But so I think it's, it's like, you know, if you want to. Go fast, find them. You want, you know, you want to just use air, but then if you lost it, then you have to, okay. You know, you got to do something slower, harder, but then you say, okay, that is, they were here. Do you think that can be trained? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I mean, these search dog people I worked with, Shay Cook and others. I mean, they, they start training their dogs when they're eight weeks old. I mean, they, they, you can't just take any dog and, and I mean, you know. Well, search and rescue is a whole training thing, but I bet, I mean, I think, so I think you've got breed differences, you know, obviously hounds, beagles. I mean, they are all nose, but so you, but you've got layers. So you've got the breed, you've got personality, which is going to vary within a litter. Then you've got experience, which is training and then its own experience. Um, no. Maybe also, you know, they're going to learn from each other. So like, is there a really experienced dog that is leading the pack, um, that other, the younger dogs can pick up on? Um, so all that's going to end, you know, complexity, which is probably why you end up with some amazing dogs, you know, that are doing things. Shay had a dog, Zinka, who, um, she was hired to go to an orchard in Southern California. She was hired to find a, um, an, you know, an invasive pest, insects pest. And this was like five acre orchard and the dog found both the insects, you know, I mean, and, and didn't look and, and because she trained her on that insect. I mean, that's the other thing. How big is that bug? Oh, tiny, tiny, you know, like. Not like a big old cockroach or something? No, no, no. A little, a little tiny thing. And, and you were asking about, um, you know. Can they learn different things? Well, that, you know, you've got the dog who's only will go for blood or, or go for whatever's coming out of the hooves. I mean, search and rescue, you've got car, you know, you've got cadaver, um, versus live, you know, and, and I mean, we, you know, we also, um, and you can have six people run out into a field site and the dog is only supposed to find one person. And that dog will only go to that one person. Yeah. Like that level of detail. Absolutely. Yeah. On that question. Go ahead. On that question of, of that, there's certain climatic conditions that are good for a dog or any animal smell. Yeah. I'm assuming to be saying for like, like, so in general, you say, can, can you hit me again real quick? No, it's, it's a physics really. So, um, it, it's more humid is better. Okay. Um, and that's, it turns out that's because water molecules, um, there's only so many places that. An odor can sit on the surface and when there's a lot of water molecules in the air, they fill up all those places. And so odor molecules stay in the air that this is what the physicists have, have, have said. It seems like. And it's warm, better than cold. And warm is better than cold because warm is more, you've got more air movement. Um, I mean, or molecules move more when, when it's warmer. Yeah. Um, so you want, but you don't, you, so you want warm. Um, and humid, um, and, and probably, uh, um, a textured, um, surface, not like, you know, not bare rock. Um, but assuming that like, assuming that through time odors degrade, would there ever be a situation? Could it be that you went somewhere, a dog went somewhere and it was, and the coldest part of the day. So there's already an odor laid down and animals already gone by. Yeah. So you take your dog there, the coldest part of the day. Yeah. And it can't do it. It's going to ever make sense. You'd be like, I'm going to come back when it warms up and let them take another swing. Now the odor is older, but would the climatic conditions ever override the age and somehow activate the odor? I bet. I know. I bet they would. I bet they would. And, um, and then the other thing is, um, you know, dogs, um, have a really interesting way. They, that they, they activate odors in the ground. So when they, I mean, you know, the dog knows they've got two holes in the front, right? They're bringing odor in. And when they sniff in, they, um, in the back, there's like a little valve that opens up and that odor gets sucked in that valve and goes right up to this, um, place where like, you know, that collects all the odors in the, um, for detecting. Then that's an inspiration, right? When they're, there's, they're breathing in. When they breathe out, um, that valve closes and they breathe out through the, um, those slits on the side and that sends the air to the side and, um, down and backwards. And so when they breathe out, they're not contaminating what they're trying to breathe in with what they're breathing out. Yeah. Yeah. This is Gary Settles did this work is amazing. Amazing work. Um, and, um, it's even. And more amazing is that he showed he studies aerodynamics that, um, when they, they jet air out of the slits of the nose, it, it becomes turbulent and it actually creates a little turbulent field. Like this is when the dog's nose is close to the ground and that turbulent field moves forward and sucks air from in front of the nose into the, towards the nose. So when they breathe out, so it's like. This incredible feedback where the, the dog, as he's breathing out, he's also, um, making the odors ahead of him, come towards him. God's incredible. Your morning workout, your muscle recovery. 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journey every time i mention a trail camera or blind i picked up at tractor supply somebody says they sell that truth is they've got more hunting and wildlife gear than most people realize and i'm a fan of them i'm a fan of any place i can pick up dog food and hunting gear in the same trip so if you haven't been lately swing by your local tractor supply or check them out online chances are you'll find great deals on whatever you need for life out here so i think we've kind of covered this but just just so that all the hound folks out there know but like there's someone that lives in uh texas and uh doesn't want dogs that run bobcats um only wants them to run lions oh yeah he seems to have successfully done so and you feel like that's that should be very easy to do very trainable absolutely i mean that's what the search and rescue people do all the time i mean they all i mean they will train one dog to do one thing or they will train i mean i think they're dogs that do more than like do cadavers and live humans and you know and then there's drug dogs that are only looking for one kind of drug so it seems like from what you're saying it seems like it'd be possible not only for it to know a mountain lion from a bobcat but for it to know that mountain lion from that mountain lion absolutely absolutely and and maybe you could say train it just to go for female about um you know bobcats i mean they would be able to do that they'd know that absolutely i mean you you know you'd have to um i wouldn't want you to do that and i don't know how you do that but but i but but theoretically their level of smell would be that it could tell the difference right i mean it just like you know the kangaroo knows that that was a devil that has eaten kangaroo um there's you know mice voles actually um two males know that that male has eaten in last 12 hours and this one hasn't so this one is more of a competitor because it's you know so i mean it's just like it's there's it's a massive amount of um there's no privacy in olfaction everything that you are comes out through your skin and an animal and their scent marks and um oh that's the other thing is scent marks how do you how you know odors um like when animals you know urinate defecate i mean there's a lot of oils and heavy um molecules and those all um prevent the um odors from evaporating and so if you're like if you're marking what you want purposely on purpose you want um you know everyone to know that that's your territory and i marked it and you don't want it to disappear because you want them to think i just marked it because that means i was just there and animals are really sensitive to how long an odor has been um was last there um and in fact oh this was a dog result is that um if you take a search dog and you bring him in at a right angle to a trail and are they going to turn left or right to follow a human yeah well there's two studies of this and where they only know that they're going to be five human footsteps to know which way the human went that's so you've got a human who lays down a trail like you know 20 minutes ago and the dog comes in and three steps isn't enough five steps is enough that means that the light volatiles have you know have blown off um the difference between the first step and the fifth step i mean but he can go like weaker weaker take five steps stronger stronger exactly and so they know that my prey is going you know went left not right and so that's the kind of um discrimination between you know a human wearing shoes five steps that the dog knows that that's the difference i mean and that that was um and they were stepping on carpet so it wasn't like crushed vegetation or anything i mean it was really just the the steps um so so and it should be i mean if it's doing that with the with the human in boots it should be no different with the lion or a bobcat or a bear because they're sweating through their pads i mean animals have all these sweat glands in their pads um to protect them so yeah i mean they're just yeah okay i know for a fact i've i've watched him do it i can explain all the conditions if you want but this is a fact the short version of we're out there together mingus and i my blue tick hound dog and he's maybe 20 yards down the hill from me and we both kind of come up on a track at the same time and i go oh i think that's a mountain lion track wow before i really looked closely and he immediately starts going up he starts going one direction and does not change directions this track has quite a bit of fresh snow in it from the morning but it's obviously fresh enough that he's smelling through that fresh snow right right i couldn't tell which way it was going until the track went underneath the tree there was less snow and i could finally see the toes yeah he ran that track backwards i'm guessing 700 to a thousand yards the wrong direction the wrong direction eventually he turned yeah so is he just he got he is he and his head up right he's trailing he's going for it's air you know he knows that he's he sniffs the trail he knows there's a mountain lion yeah there's i mean what was the wind that day there was probably it wasn't dead calm yeah it wasn't yeah something but this is generally this is like a general thing that people sort of know is that a beagle can very quickly figure out what way a rabbit went but a hound can't quickly figure out what way um oh that's interesting but but here's the key difference a beagle's always working something that happened two minutes ago oh okay and he's he's working effectively what happened right now nose down nose down right the beagle the beagle is doing nose down so it's working on big molecules that are being left by the body you know whereas the but that's a very slow way to work as opposed to the hound which is like i'm going after a mountain lion that's a big animal moving very fast i need to use air right um because i've got to go far and so maybe occasionally um that's a mountain lion but now the wind has come in and has shifted it over like the we've seen with our search dogs shift over and so it's it's picking up a molecule you know a volatile molecule and the volatile molecules are this way and then it gets to a point where it's like you know what that's that's the wrong way um and then it's got to come back no but what he means is he's following it like i missed like like okay let's say you um let's say a rabbit gets scared a dog scares or you you scare a rabbit yeah yeah you see rabbit takes off and then someone's like oh here comes the beagle so you know what way the rabbit yeah yeah here comes the beagle that beagle is going to almost instantly know what direction of travel yeah it's not going to run it backwards right but that's like the dog it's going to go the way it went but it's like but that's a minute's old trail but like i like i think what he's saying his dog went didn't know way the lion was going right and he went 700 000 yards in the wrong direction right complete like 180 wrong well he's he's literally following the trail backwards backwards oh he's following it backwards he's not putting together that it's getting older and older and older oh that's very cool okay because number one is snow so it's cold not it's not great conditions um and so so any snow is going to be bad well or harder i think harder definitely harder um so um like i what what do beagles do in the snow i guess that that would be um they're fat they're fine but again yeah he's dealing like just the nature of hunting rabbits with a beagle yes you're dealing with things that just happened right right right so but the hound like in that situation you're dealing with things that are hours ago right but but do beagles mostly hunt nose down also okay okay so that's a completely different um so now your dog needs to hunt it's an old trail it's got to hunt nose down it's got to go for the heavy things right and hepper you know um again that that study showed to do those heavy ones you can do direction but you need a certain amount of data to get the direction correct and so you've got an old trail in the snow so you've got two strikes against you and so um there's probably enough odor in that trail that it knows that that's a mountain lion but there's not enough odor um they're not getting the oh because the the volatiles are gone it's an old trail so you need the volatiles um to know fine you know for an old trail like the beagle probably is getting volatiles too you know because it's brand it's just happened um so you've got an old trail so all it's left are the big heavy molecules the the volatiles that can you just just define and explain the volatiles okay just little things that um um that evaporate into the air little molecules you know it's like if um if i'm sure you know all this in perfume um people talk about i'm just joking but but if you wear perfume they're base notes and there's top notes and when you put perfume on your skin the first thing you smell is a top note and it's the it's the small molecules that come off first and then then an hour later then it's a it's a different perfume it smells on your skin smells it's a base note because that's now you're now the top notes are burnt off and now you're getting the base are gone right and so so you've got so perfume people you know they know top notes middle notes base it's the same thing and so you're basically um an old trail the top notes are gone they've all evaporated you know before and so what's left is enough you know to know that that's a mountain lion and this is a this is a fairly i mean if that was a um a month old trail in the snow your dog might not even i mean the dog still might know it's a mountain lion but it's like that trail is so old i'm not going to bother yeah i'm never gonna some of it's a dog saying i'm gonna you know it's not it's not worth my time but your dog going doing a 180 means that it's missing those little molecules that come off early that tell it because that's like literally think about the difference between the step one and step five that is like you know one second i mean difference and that's how old and so it's but that's helpful with a rapidly dissipating thing right exactly and so because these same dogs if they're chasing a raccoon they know where the raccoon went but that's all new stuff right new new they're talking that's tonight they're like right they're at midnight they're at midnight they're talking about what happened at 11 p.m exactly his dog at 8 a.m is maybe talking about what happened at 1 a.m or what you know yeah yeah yeah or it could even be 8 p.m the day before exactly or even even you know if it's important i mean if you've got a buck you know chasing a doe i bet there could be you know um sure even longer in fact squirrels they know not only they smell and um they smell the um a female at her like these are ground squirrels they males come up and they smell female and they know that she's like three days away from being receptive and they come back three days later you kidding no so certainly a buck deer would do that with a female deer totally it's like she's not ready yet yeah yeah um and they so i can tell you where i'll be on tuesday yes exactly exactly so let's talk about time is that's the one thing yeah that i i really think of odor as space and time because every time you put an odor down it starts a time it starts a stopwatch sure and anyone smelling it knows when they were there yeah so let's talk about that like conditions that either preserve or degrade the sense that these dogs or whoever is trying to follow well you know that's why cats cover their you know animals cover their poops and i mean cover their scats and things like that or why you've got um you know bears you know reaching really high up and and um marking trees um because they've got scent glands um i'm sure they've got must have scent glands in their in their paws and so they're leaving individual signature they're also telling another bear that i am that tall you know because you can't fake it they don't have little step stools um you know why dogs pee as high up as they can um into into like texture surface so that's gonna that's gonna stay longer anything you're textured um but animals really care about how long scent lasts um mice males have something called a mouse urinary protein and it's this massive protein that only males males produce enormous quantity and it um all the only function is is to make the um the volatiles not evaporate so quickly so and they're because they're competing i mean it's just like coyotes or wolves or anything that's scent marking territorial mice are very territorial and so they're marking their territory and they want um so another male coming in says oh that male was just there he's you know he's defending this space i'll back off but can't scratching if it if it if it that should be doing this covering its own scat or covering its own urine is you think it's like he's trying to get it to stick around not trying to destroy it yeah he's trying to get it from from dissipating i think so i mean i'm not sure i'm not totally sure about that that could be that could also be trying to you know cats are small reducing scent so that predators don't know you're around also um that that's a possibility they make marks like like yes they um they make visual marks yeah yeah yeah and that and that's you know but you've got like mountain lions will you know bury prey that's so like other animals don't find it um and uh hyenas cash bones in water holes so that they absolutely no one can also they're definitely trying to hide stuff that's definitely trying to hide it yeah but but a lot of um but you know you can see scent scat piles by coyotes or wolves i mean they're they just keep marking the same place i mean this is like really obvious visual you know i am here i was just here i mean this has been studied a lot it's um in in there's studied hamsters that they also do something called counter marking so one animal will mark and then the other one comes and marks over it and um you know and um they did the study where instead of having two animals marked they painted with a paint brush um a broken line and then a and then a solid line so from two different hamsters and so it looked like this the the solid line had come after the the broken line but they had actually been done at the same time it was but the geometry of the mark um would have suggested that one of them was later and therefore dominant and then when they set those two major males up as contestants they they treated um they treated that male as dominant even though the whole thing had been um set up by the experimenters really yeah yeah so that means so when you know when you see scat piles they probably coyotes and and while they probably know they know who's done it when they did it who did it let you know i mean there's just this sequencing of it yeah i mean there's just it's like the um it's like the internet it never goes away it's all there they smell it i mean i think i think dogs probably learn to ignore something that's not going to pay off i mean that's you know it's not so the question is do they re they smell it or is it um or is it they don't think it's worth it and to do that you need to bring them into the you know into like an experiment where you you collect these scent samples and you say can you tell me which one you know is this a mountain lion or which one's older you should you know ask them which one's older they should be able to you know tell you that um and you know press a lever for the older one and so i mean that's the kinds of those are kinds of experiments you could do with dogs to find out because i bet they know a lot more than we we know in the case of like holding scent and these conditions that might prolong scent being there to get rid of it like is there you you said obviously textures are good because it's just like little nooks and crannies i'm guessing for these heavier molecules to sit in and get held is there something that where snow in some form because it's you know you're almost pressing it into a medium that it would hold scent molecules or because there again there are times where i can clearly see that it's a mountain lion track but my dog is not interested and it's like you can it's visually there but somehow the scent has literally well it's also disappeared from it i mean it's also cold it's wet but it's cold yeah and that's the and cold is um it makes it harder to the molecules literally it's you know brownie in motion the molecules are not moving and so they're just like um they're so they need molecules moving to be able to because they've got to yeah they got to get it in their nose and if it's all i mean so normally you know They're smelling good. close to the ground the molecules are you know they're kind of dancing above the ground and they're they're able to smell them and they sniff them and they're sucking up the air um and they're sniffing them in so it's literally the air next to said surface not the surface itself yeah i mean right because the surface they're trying to get they can't smell the surface they have to smell things in the air and so they they're you know they they're going sniff sniff and of course when they're expiring they're they're setting up these little they're agitating it so they're they're bringing up um anything that's on the ground they're bringing it up into air and then they can suck it in and find out what it is but um they i mean so the same thing when they're um there might be a you know a hard surface or clothing or something and um to smell it they still need those um to be in the air yeah they can't they can't stuff a piece of cloth in their nose and say that's what it is it has to be something it's got to come off the surface into air into to get into their nose um so if it's cold i think molecules are just not going to be moving as much um their nose isn't probably going to be working as well um i i mean i imagine if you um if you if you if you took like a hammer and you put it in your nose and you put it in your nose and you put it in your nose and you put it in your hand warmer and put it on the on the on the on the footprint and heated it up that way that would be interesting i wonder if that would help it might excite some activity there for some yeah yeah let me ask you a series of quick questions like so let me just decide what one's better like if as a as a surface for an animal to detect odor on okay so like gym floor gravel driveway um i'd say um well for detection um the same temperature and the same wind and everything the same i think actually the gym floor because things are not going to stick to it so they're going to be more they're going to you know the same wind is going to pick things off the gym floor but if you want to know 24 hours later where where there might be a cold trail then i would say the gravel because it would have gone down into the the crevices and it would still there would still be a cold trail there would still be stuff there i guess actually so that would be i would say the if what are you going for you're going for the heavy molecules or the light molecules just i didn't think it through that far i didn't i mean i'm just doing this on the fly but i but i think um yeah because um a smooth surface um you know it's a smooth surface molecules volatiles are just gonna you know blow stay stay aloft but it won't have the holding power it won't have the holding power exactly i'm gonna do one more okay um a rock hard frozen lake just pure flat clear ice yeah or a lake with an inch of snow frozen lake inch of snow i think an inch of snow um would um i mean if one thing a frozen lake is gonna have it's gonna be it's cold it's probably gonna be windy everything's gonna get blown off um and whereas the snow has some texture to it so it can hold on to stuff you know and um and whereas the snow is actually going to keep things warmer um because you know it's slightly warmer under snow maybe got it cut you one more yeah smooth granite surface uh inch of snow like smooth granite dry surface right here right right smooth a granite surface with an inch of snow yeah i um again i think it would be um um if you've got an animal that's moved fast over the smooth granite and you're right on top of that animal then there that granite is going to lift there's gonna be a lot of volatiles in the air and so that that a dog with his nose up in the air is going to do would it's going to have a lot of information um but if it's a little older then the snow is maybe it's going to hold some of those large molecules and i'm i'm not a hunter and i'm completely be completely wrong about all this but that's my no this isn't hunting questions this is smelling questions yeah but i think what steve is getting at a little bit i think it must have been in here somewhere is that the dry ground versus a wet ground or what would be like called like a snow type hunt yeah there's a debate there's a debate here that you'll think is interesting in arizona and and the southwest the hounds are constantly having to work in dry conditions right no snow right right right the north northern tier of the rockies we're always running tracks in the snow i think it's a common belief that the dry ground hounds have it harder yeah yeah because it's i mean when all else fails humidity you know i mean so you've got it hot and dry that's that's what our dogs they were the worst hot and dry and they're better when it's cold and humid now we weren't working in snow but um maybe that's the same thing well you're talking but you're talking about the snow's ability because this is cold this is old stuff old information right the snow's ability to hang on to some old information yep yep exactly and and and snow does i mean that's why animals burrow in snow i mean it's warmer and you're warmer in the snow than you are exposed so yeah no this has been really interesting because i think you're you are um you know you're clearing it up but i think that's the thing that a lot of hound hunters hadn't thought about right that it's really about what's going on above the surface not so much on the surface that's right yeah yeah because they're not yeah no i got it that's the thing i hadn't thought about it's like when it's smelling like just like definitionally it has to be something that is in the air right right right unless using the vomeronasal system unless they're tasting this they're tasting it which is when licking it right exactly yeah yeah do you feel like when they're panting so when they're working real hard what's that what's how's that affecting that blocks their smell they can't sniff and pant at the same time really yes that definitely there's um what yes no because you know you you've um you you can't bring you bring air into that's just going straight into your lungs um you've got to bring it you know past the olfactory epithelium you're not you're not panting through your nose you're panting through your um your you know your mouth yeah oh i gotta hit you with one about this whole dry ground humidity deal so my buddy kevin murphy he's a he's he likes to run rabbits with his beagles he lives in kentucky he runs rabbits all over hell all the time we took his beagles out to new mexico like in the flat out desert yeah and put them on jack rabbits yeah and also also cottontail so same rat yeah yeah yeah yeah they couldn't do it yeah i believe it oh that's and in his mind he's like they're not used to hot and dry well no i mean that hot and dry is harder period and plus um though these i mean i mean if we're thinking beagles are nose down heavy molecule trackers yeah but still um um it's just not gonna yeah um they're gonna they they're using brand new and so they're they're gonna lost all their volatiles they're used to i mean they're you know they're spoiled they're in kentucky it's incredibly hot and humid they've got it's like a perfect olfactory you know situation and then it's just like i mean probably if you if you kept those beagles in arizona for a year and they would learn um but but you just bring them out there and they're what there's no information here this is i can't do this yeah your morning workout your muscle recovery the moment you're doing something intentional for your performance with the addition of creatine and more ag1 pro makes it easier than ever to maximize your results ag1 is great especially if you travel a lot and your diet on the road doesn't always match up to what you uh feel like you should be doing for yourself and even especially like in backcountry situations because it's just lightweight easy to carry and really fills out your nutrition plan and if you're already taking creatine 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helping hunters anglers and field to table enthusiasts process and preserve their harvest with confidence visit lemproducts.com and use promo code steve15 to get 15 off plus free shipping that's lemproducts.com promo code steve15 lem built for the work there for the journey every time i mention a trail camera or blind i picked up at tractor supply somebody says they sell that truth is they've got more hunting and wildlife gear than most people realize and i'm a fan of any place i can pick up dog food and hunting gear in the same trip so if you haven't been lately swing by your local tractor supplier check them out online chances are you'll find great deals on whatever you need for life out here there's people trying to figure out deer you know and they make synthetic scents oh huh that are meant to you know be like not only is it a scent coming off the face of a deer but it's this is specifically mimics the forehead gland or specifically mimics the orbital or yeah the glands that are you know where they the pee on them on their hawks yeah right right right right so again just in your experience and messing around with scents like is it possible for us to just to make a synthetic scent that could that could fool a deer's nose and brain um so um no because hamsters have like the same thing they've got like four different scent glands and they um and so the lab work and this is i'm sure drew for deer that they recognize individuals by all these different you know but they know that that's the anal gland and that's the chest gland and that but they also know it's that individual um so it's a really complicated signal and you know you've got a deer with five different scent glands everyone smells different but you know they're all different they're different for that they they identify that individual and now you're bringing something some generic thing you know um that is um generic hawk odor that um or maybe you know it was it was synthesized for a deer in wisconsin but you're actually hunting in a completely completely different population um probably they smell differently like they're going like who the hell is that i i don't know who that is i i mean i've never or that's not even my neighborhood that's not even my state you know i mean sure if they came to wisconsin and they synthesized you know your five glands for each one of your deer even so i think it'd be very confusing for the deer to know um like who the hell who is that i mean that's a weird robot deer you know i mean that doesn't make any sense it's like if you showed up wearing a halloween mask um you know it's it's equivalent of you of you wearing of doing something very weird they recognize that it's deer and they recognize that it's a scent but they don't understand what it means you know like a stranger walking into your house and your kids like oh it's just a person yeah exactly it doesn't exactly sure you know sure have dinner with us yeah it's like no no no that exact that's exactly right yeah so i think that they're underestimating the deer's um intelligence and um and also the other thing is that it might be that um you know i mean in some populations how do how are deers using these glands you know is that something that they're marking out territories or is it aggressive or um you know it's just it's it's kind of like it's a deer language and you're coming in with a big sign that says you know one thing and the deer is going what what are you saying i don't you know they're just it's confusing manufacturers will claim that hey you don't use this one during these dates this one is specifically meant from october 15th to november 1 when the when the bucks are going to be specifically going to the scrapes they're marking them in a very territorial fashion right right and you want to basically introduce a stranger so that that buck's like man i don't know who's been hitting my scrape but i need to come back here and keep putting my scent back on top of it that's that's that that makes complete sense because they're marking and then then they're counter-marking that's right so that's exactly what they have but you feel like we could fool that buck enough to make him think that someone else is counter-marking so i need to come back and counter-mark i mean the thing is if you give them an animal something that's really really important like um and to a buck whether i'm going to reproduce that is everything like it doesn't i could you know it doesn't matter if i live or die if i don't reproduce who cares so so that's life or death for a buck so that would be i this is weird but i'm going to do it um it's kind of like when i was trapping squirrels and um to you know for behavior and you know when in the middle of the summer you can trap any squirrel and you can eat the squirrel as much as you want but as soon as the you know the oaks start ripening again the squirrels are going i'm not going in that trap i know it's a trap it's a trade-off i'm like i know it's a trap i know it's i'm you know it's it could be bad but i'm really hungry and i'm going to go for it and and two weeks later it's like the same squirrel and then oh because because they know at that point they have enough the risk exactly you know what's crazy about that so we got a buddy and we got a buddy in in uh arkansas and they'll put out bait piles for bears and in the summer you might have 17 18 bears on a bait pile the minute the acorns hit yes they're gone exactly oh it's like well it can't be easier than a bait pile no no but in their head it's like no it's not easier than bait piles it's less risky than a bait pile it's let well um well it's also you know it's also not um it's not as good i mean acorns are really um highly nutritious and i think that's actually because the same thing with um i mean they they evolved to eat acorns and acorns are full of kinds of micronutrients that bait that there's no way i can't i can't um you know walnuts and peanuts so he's slumming it when he's on bait exactly i mean hungry and slumming it i think that's right yeah yeah i got one for you about canines and this is um so in like in the in the outdoorsman world okay there's this there's this long-running debate if you went back if you went back to 1980 all right in 1980 there was an idea that you could that a fox trapper or a coyote trapper could wear rubber boots and slosh wear rubber boots slosh around in the mud puddle wear rubber gloves and wash them okay that you could go and like set a trap and have it be that the fox or the coyote would never would not know that a human was there you could make it that he was never there since 1980 the understanding has evolved to now where there's guys that don't even wear rubber gloves because in their mind they're like there's nothing you can do i think that's right they always know you're there yeah you can play games yeah it knows you're there yeah i mean you're you're tricking yourself to think that it doesn't it's like it knows you're there yeah yeah yeah because you know our we are dropping dead skin cells like thousands all day long you know and our you know you've got these skin cells that um are covered with bacteria and the bacteria are decomposing and that makes your own your own particular odor i mean you're just leaving a stream of of heavy you know pieces of tissue around you so you're walking through the woods you're just dropping trails so it's not just your feet it's like you're just dropping in from you know that information and again if you're a it's you know dinner or my life and so so an animal who thinks you're you know you're a predator they just need one little whiff of that so you think the idea that you would hide like and this is like not old this is like yesterday you think i'm saying when i mean that i mean that you think the idea that that 24 hours later that you could hang out in a place for a minute hovering around a place for a minute that 24 hours later in your mind it doesn't matter what you got on your hands i think i think it's like there was a dude here yeah i think so i mean i think um you know unless you did all this masking and all this kind of but just your yourself with with gloves without gloves i think they would still know yeah but this masking that you speak of that's what we're interested in i know i know i know well so then but i don't know i mean again you know animals um it's like actually i've got um you know mice in my car and so um what really works are these these rodent you know smelly packets you know you get these herbal packets yeah and they they you know you put them and and and i thought that i was just realizing i was putting them in yesterday because you have mice vandalizing your car yes yes yeah i just and yesterday like before i i flew out here i turned on the um you know the air vents and all this mouse beddings blowing out it's like i got mice back you live on a farm yeah yeah and we get the mice you know uh deer mice all over the place and um and i realized no no no it isn't that they don't like the smell this fragrant thing it's not it's that it masks their own odor that they can't um that it confuses them if they're we're moving around this dark car using a lot of odor and i've got all these big stinky packets you know that people buy for their cars and their crux and everything is like it's just it's disorienting it's like having wind so i think and again it's like a blind spot like you said before it's like that odor blind spot and they don't like that but that's what you're saying is the interesting point about this issue is like in in in our minds okay when i say artists mean collectively like people that are trying to trick animals in your mind you're creating an atmosphere that he'll be comfortable being in but just won't be able to tell what's going on and you're saying you might be creating an atmosphere where that they don't want to be in it right right right because you know it's like you're creating a confusing information is is safety right i mean you wouldn't want to be in a space that you didn't know where anything was i mean that's very dangerous i mean animals number one where am i that they they they use vision olfaction i mean they use everything they can and and then there's home court advantage you know animals are safer in spaces where they know they have escape routes you know they know where the predators are they know who the predators are all that stuff is very important so you come in and you do make it chaos i don't you know it's i i want to tell you a story though oh yeah it's kind of what you're talking about in a way but with humans so my buddy my buddy i have a buddy in hawaii danny bolton and they have a they have a coffee plantation like a family property and he's got all these bananas banana trees um i think at one spot time they were like cultivated intentionally but now it's just like scattered banana trees and i was out there with my kids and they're trying to find a like a bundle of like ripe bananas yeah which you can't find because everybody's always in there getting the bananas he says though if you really want to find ripe bananas you got to go they have this pile where they make their own fish-based fertilizer so they have a place where they're really like they're rotting down fish carcasses he says i guarantee you'll find ripe bananas there because no one wants to go there so you go down to the rotten fish pile and it's all over the place because it's like he just finds over the years that people are like they hit that wall of stench and they and they go look for bananas somewhere else i tell you that and it worked there's like ripe bananas you know that's animal behavior that's perfect animal behavior that's exactly how that's exactly how you should think about deer deer in the woods yeah i think we'll be remiss if we have a a gray squirrel expert here and we don't hit on like you got to tell us like what's cool about gray squirrels and their noses and i don't know if we want to talk about caching yeah tell us the best thing we don't know about gray squirrels okay well i mean i um so my phd thesis they remember where they bury their nuts and recent work we did um on um in in california was that squirrels when they bury nuts we gave them a random series of nuts of different species they organize them by species species so that they would move so that the walnuts are here almonds are there hazelnuts are there like you give them a pile and there'd be three of each no no we give them one at a time so that they didn't know what was coming next so they all of a sudden we give them a walnut and they carry the walnut that far we've actually also showed an earlier study that they measure the weight of the nut by shaking it so if you watch a squirrel give a squirrel a nut put it in the nut in the mouth they go like that and that's just like if you had something really light and you wonder how heavy is it you do that and so it's force equals mass times acceleration it's isaac newton um we i got to you know i get to say that it's true um but they measure it and then depending how heavy the nut is they carry it farther away from the source tree where all the other squirrels are you don't you want to get it far away and cache it so that other squirrels um don't find your cache so the bigger the nut the farther they cache it and it's more valuable it's more valuable and they not only that but then if it's really valuable nut they cache them further apart so that oh really if one squirrel finds it then they start looking like this they don't find the next one so if you give them a diversified portfolio it's completely that's exactly the same thing you know and so you've got um the density of a hazelnut is like this an almond is like this and a walnut is like that you know and so if you give these squirrel a random series of nuts you give them a nut they make they weigh it then they go out and cache it and they're caching it in the walnut area and then they come back and it's an almond now they got to go cache in the almond area and then they come back and they cache you know and every time they go out they have to remember where the other one was so they have to keep the the um the density right yeah and they do that because we're out there marking it like can you can he keep how many walnuts can he keep track of we don't we don't we don't know they they cache thousands probably 3 000 a year of a gray squirrel um and and we know that in the lab they can remember you know they can accurately remember like seven of ten but i i you know we no one's figured out yet how to measure how much they remember in the in the field the thing is squirrels are actually they cache in you know august september and then they're they're caching in their area in their home area and so they are out they're active all winter and if you look at a squirrel november december i mean all winter they're out there sniffing the ground and you'll see them sniff the ground even through snow and sniff and then they'll um but if there's like just leaves and they're like checking caches and then they they then they'll put the leaves back on it and they'll go the next one and then sometimes they'll dig them up and move them so they're constantly managing them you know all all winter so it's i don't think they actually have to remember them for nine months i mean they eat them they cash them in august they finish them you know april um something like that and so but they're not i mean there are birds that cash them um clark's nutcrackers you know cash's pinion seeds in august september and then they're they're not they're not in august september and then they may not retrieve them until march and so those really those really and under deep snow so those animals they really are remembering exactly and under deep snow so those animals they really are remembering exactly where they are but a squirrel's where they are but a squirrel's constantly fiddling with them and passing over them and constantly fiddling with them and passing over them and re-smelling them yeah yeah yeah but they re-smelling them yeah yeah yeah but they can remember but they don't have to i mean so mammals can remember but they don't have to i mean so mammals are i mean squirrels are interesting are i mean squirrels are interesting because they've got really good memory but they um they because they've got really good memory but they um they can also smell whereas most birds there's can also smell whereas most birds there's actually i just saw magpies yesterday i actually i just saw magpies yesterday i actually i just saw magpies yesterday i love magpies um magpies actually have a love magpies um magpies actually have a love magpies um magpies actually have a good sense of smell and they can good sense of smell and they can good sense of smell and they can um if you coat a raisin in cod liver oil um if you coat a raisin in cod liver oil um if you coat a raisin in cod liver oil and bury it a magpie can find it and bury it a magpie can find it and bury it a magpie can find it that was a study showing that um because that was a study showing that um because that was a study showing that um because they they're carrion eaters they're they they're carrion eaters they're they they're carrion eaters they're probably you know like ravens and probably you know like ravens and probably you know like ravens and magpies they're probably attracted to magpies they're probably attracted to magpies they're probably attracted to smells um but but squirrels squirrels smells um but but squirrels squirrels smells um but but squirrels squirrels can do both they can smell or they can can do both they can smell or they can can do both they can smell or they can yeah yeah yeah you get started with squirrels you know you get started with squirrels you know you get started with squirrels you know it'll be another three hours so i it'll be another three hours so i it'll be another three hours so i remember but we had a squirrel expert on remember but we had a squirrel expert on remember but we had a squirrel expert on one time years ago yeah i can't remember one time years ago yeah i can't remember one time years ago yeah i can't remember his name john john it was john his name john john it was john his name john john it was john kapowski yeah episode 259 i pulled it kapowski yeah episode 259 i pulled it kapowski yeah episode 259 i pulled it up yeah he was doing this stuff see i up yeah he was doing this stuff see i up yeah he was doing this stuff see i remember he's he's an expert on this i remember he's he's an expert on this i remember he's he's an expert on this i remember reading remember reading remember reading in headlines i remember at one point in in headlines i remember at one point in in headlines i remember at one point in time reading in a headline that time reading in a headline that time reading in headlines i remember reading in a headline that someone's like squirrels can't someone's like squirrels can't someone's like squirrels can't that they they don't that they they don't that they they don't get their own cash nuts any more get their own cash nuts any more get their own cash nuts any more reliably than somebody else's that's reliably than somebody else's that's reliably than somebody else's that's what i mean that's not true not true i what i mean that's not true not true i what i mean that's not true not true i mean that that's what no and i mean mean that that's what no and i mean mean that that's what no and i mean i've been literally studying this since i've been literally studying this since i've been literally studying this since 1981 so they're they're more likely to 1981 so they're they're more likely to 1981 so they're they're more likely to go find their own than they are to find go find their own than they are to find go find their own than they are to find somebody else yes and um and what i saw somebody else yes and um and what i saw somebody else yes and um and what i saw in in i had this like like 10 yard by in in i had this like like 10 yard by in in i had this like like 10 yard by five yard um arena where i had hand five yard um arena where i had hand five yard um arena where i had hand raised squirrels that were you know and raised squirrels that were you know and raised squirrels that were you know and what would i would put in decoys i their what would i would put in decoys i their what would i would put in decoys i their own caches and then decoys and if a own caches and then decoys and if a own caches and then decoys and if a squirrel came up and they were like two squirrel came up and they were like two squirrel came up and they were like two nuts right next to each other one was nuts right next to each other one was nuts right next to each other one was his and one was his and one was his and one was a decoy if he hit the decoy first a decoy if he hit the decoy first a decoy if he hit the decoy first he'd keep going so i think his his he'd keep going so i think his his he'd keep going so i think his his memory was like there's one there but memory was like there's one there but memory was like there's one there but if i find one if i find one if i find one so he's not using smell because he was so he's not using smell because he was so he's not using smell because he was then he would go to the one that was then he would go to the one that was then he would go to the one that was like two inches away but he wasn't like two inches away but he wasn't like two inches away but he wasn't he would just go on to the next one so he would just go on to the next one so he would just go on to the next one so like a little bit going boom boom boom like a little bit going boom boom boom boom like a little bit going boom boom boom boom boom and i um studied the same thing boom and i um studied the same thing boom and i um studied the same thing in kangaroo rats and miriam's kangaroo in kangaroo rats and miriam's kangaroo in kangaroo rats and miriam's kangaroo rats which are rats which are rats which are they hoard like squirrels um and um and they hoard like squirrels um and i found sex differences there that was i found sex differences there that was i found sex differences there that was interesting the males were more likely interesting the males were more likely interesting the males were more likely to use um odors they were more likely to use um odors they were more likely to use um odors they were more likely to find caches that still had seeds in to find caches that still had seeds in to find caches that still had seeds in them and females um them and females um them and females um we had a bunch of landmarks around and we had a bunch of landmarks around and we had a bunch of landmarks around and females as long as the landmarks were females as long as the landmarks were females as long as the landmarks were there females were super good at that there females were super good at that there females were super good at that and um and nails um didn't use the and um and nails um didn't use the and um and nails um didn't use the landmarks as much landmarks as much landmarks as much and and they were more likely to use and and they were more likely to use and and they were more likely to use their their nose but that's that's a their their nose but that's that's a their their nose but that's that's a whole other area of research i've i've whole other area of research i've i've whole other area of research i've i've studied for a lot um is um sex studied for a lot um is um sex studied for a lot um is um sex differences in differences in differences in landmark use um in in kangaroo rats landmark use um in in kangaroo rats landmark use um in in kangaroo rats and and and humans and you know male refrigerator blindness um i'm sure you've heard of that no this is where you know um the a man goes to the refrigerator and says where's the butter oh yeah and opens it up and says i don't see it i don't see it and then you know it's actually right right there um so i mean it's just i call that all three of my kids refrigerator blindness oh yeah yeah terrible anyway no no so you see similar things in kangaroo rats that's all i'm saying so you're uh when will your when will your book on squirrels be ready so probably um i'm hoping it'll be come out like fall of 27 okay and what will be called um it's called the wealth of squirrels okay and um it's um it's it's really about you know the economics of um of hoarding in squirrels and um and all everything i've just been talking about it'll be like is it intended as a popular book it's going to be a popular book for like joe blow not not like a not like an academic okay and can i mean you know um i've never done this before so i'm a little cautious saying this but but that's what i've got a contract for this book um from um harvard university press and they've agreed to let me write it as um as a story actually so it's really going to be a kind of a fictional story that is a so it's it really should be a fun a fun read but it's going to be very you know dense science and a lot of people are going to be like oh my god it'll all be based on science there's um no no humans just just squirrels um so it's an experiment we'll see yeah so it's gonna john i mean people like it's going to get peer reviewed too so it's the biology is going to be they won't accept it if the biology isn't absolutely right the wealth of squirrels the wealth of squirrels okay so stay uh listeners stay tuned for dr lucia f jacobs the wealth of squirrels and thank you for coming on today and and everything about how animals um experience their world through smell thank you this has been i have learned huge amount and i've really enjoyed this it's been great thank you very much thank you life moves fast at american military university they're ready to help you keep up amu's flexible affordable online programs in cyber security it space studies and more are designed for service members veterans and their families amu provides the support and support for all of you who are you need to take the next step wherever life takes you american military university made for what's next learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military you know those snacks that disappear way faster than you planned that's wiley wallaby licorice for me i tossed a bag in my truck for a recent trip and before i knew it it was gone i ate it my kids ate it my wife ate it we all love it what sets it apart is the texture it's authentic australian style licorice that's soft and chewy not hard and waxy like most brands they've got more than 10 flavors to choose from i love that it's made in the usa by a company that's been doing things the right way for more than 60 years use code meat eater at 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