Is your world black and white, or Technicolor®?

Here in the general Chicago area, it's in the 30's and the sun is shining. Yes, there's still plenty of snow on the ground, but the streets and sidewalks are clear, so little Gus-Gus and I went for a long walk.

We walked to the office, and it was perfect out. I'm fortunate, my office is just about a mile away, so it's a two-mile walk... a perfect 1-cigar distance.

We met a lot of people, others walking their dogs, others out enjoying the day. Nice. Oh, and my wife tells me that it's "healthy" for me to walk. (I don't think she intended for me to smoke a cigar along the way).

Gus had to stop, of course, at just about every corner, and shrub to sniff the yellow snow. I could see the thought process going on in his tiny little head. Sniff, sniff... ahh... that's the Golden Lab who lives on the corner.... sniff, sniff, and that's the little Yorkie down the street... sniff, sniff... hmmm... that's the Black and White Great Dane that ignores me all the time... that bitch has been eating too many fatty treats lately...

A veterinarian once told me that a dog’s sense of smell can be as much as 10,000 times more advanced than a human. The area of the brain that handles "smell" is 40 times larger (by percentage) in a dog's brain. Human have about five million smell receptors, compared to a dog's which range (depending on the breed) anywhere from 125 million receptors to 300 receptors.

Humans, really view the world mostly through their sense of sight, which eclipses all the other senses... while dogs view the world through their sense of smell, which eclipses their other senses. To put it into something understandable to humans... humans sense of smell is comparable to watching a 5 inch black and white cathode ray tube television, with rabbit ears... while dogs sense of smell is comparable to watching a High Definition IMAX surround-screen in Technicolour and THX sound.

So... I think we can all agree that dogs' sense of smell is highly developed, and much improved over MY sense of smell. So why is it, that when we're out walking... and we come across somebody's dog who's left a little "yellow snow" for us to investigate... that I, at 5'10" tall... with my nose a good 5'3" off the ground... can smell the "urine" smell from up there... that my little canine feels the need with his far superior sense of smell... to really STUFF his nose into the snow, and get his nose right up in there!?

I mean, he should really be able to smell it from across the street... why does he have to get right in there...?

Why, I ask you, why?