You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious.

Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

If you have a dog or ever seen a dog, you'll know they like to sniff.

They sniff the ground, they sniff trees, they smell you, and of course they even smell each other's butts.

You! Yeah, let's just say they smell everything.

But why? We're going to find out right now.

Keep listening.

Brains On!

You're listening to Brains On from American Public Media.

I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host today is 12-year-old Madison McDungle.

Hi, Madison! Hey, Molly!

Now, when we first started talking about what questions you had about dogs,

you wanted to know about why dogs smell each other and us.

So what got you thinking about that?

Well, I have a dog of my own, and I've been wondering, why does he smell the ground?

Why does he smell their dogs' butts? Why does he smell trees?

Right, they're always smelling everything. Right.

What's your dog's name?

My dog's name is Cody, and what kind of dog is he?

He's a Siberian Husky, and why do you think he smells you?

So he knows that we're part of his family, not just random strangers in his house.

The first part of the answer to why dogs like to smell everything is that they can smell so much more than we can.

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