A Pig's Sense of Smell

Nobody ever talks about a pig's sense of smell.

The dogs get all the credit--the Bloodhounds catch the criminals, the Beagles find the bombs at the airport, the Golden Retrievers find the cancer. But from what I have seen, we are using entirely the wrong species for these endeavors.

The weather lately has been the perfect "windows open" weather of Indian Summer. I have the house opened up from one end to the other to allow the wonderful South Dakota breezes flow in and, as it seems, the smells of what happens inside flow out.

The result is so much pig screaming.

You see, the pigs (unlike the dogs) can smell me making dinner from over 200 yards away. To say that they are "food motivated" is the understatement of the century. The most vague odor of food in the air, especially delicious, wonderful people food, elicits a frantic response from all pigs.

Mama Pig runs her fence and stares at the house as if she can will me to appear and bring her cookies. The two piglets come hauling ass to the back door and start up to carry on with some high decibel screeching that would do a 80's metal band proud. The circle the back door crying their piggy hearts out, demanding that the feast be shared with them.

To make matters worse, Cletus tends to get overexcited by any activity and almost always ends up joining the cacophony outside the house. He has no idea why he is making noise, but he is always happy to join in.

And our dogs?

Our dogs with their "superior sense of smell" don't even notice. They tool around the yard, completely oblivious to the excitement at the door. Our dogs sometimes can't even find a bite of steak if I drop it on the ground in front of them....it will take several seconds of sniffing before they can zone in on the exact location.

And so it is that I am pretty darn sure we have recruited the wrong species for all of our "sniffing" activities.