More well-known than the macrosmatics rat, red deer, salmon or shark, the dog is known for having an excellent sense of smell. With up to 220 million olfactory cells and more competent than many mammals, the dog's ability to smell is about a million better than that of humans, which is not solely due to the number of olfactory cells. Salmon recognize the river in which they grew up by smell and are able to return there. But you can't train them to find shrink-wrapped cocaine hidden in the water.

Some of the approximately 350 dog breeds, however, are used as drug search dogs. After their training, they are able to distinguish cocaine, hashish, marijuana, ecstasy, heroin and amphetamine. The fact that they can sniff out invisible residual deposits allows investigators to secure evidence such as means of transport and storage and thus track down couriers and traders.

Wolves and humans go together

The name Canis lupus familiaris already indicates that the domestic dog belongs to the family of dogs, Canidae, and to the species wolf, Lupus. It is also indisputably descended from the wolf. Josef H. Reichholf writes in his introduction "Pets" that he considers the thesis of the anthropologist Pat Shipman, according to which Homo sapiens could replace the Neanderthal man by using the wolf as a hunting partner to the dog, to be plausible. Both preferred food was meat. "Wolves and humans with the hunter-gatherer way of life fit together almost perfectly in their social behaviour. Both partners gain efficiency by living together."

Reichholf does not believe that wolves were tamed in the Ice Age world by humans offering them the remains of hunted mammoths. He writes that the wolves that best adapted to human behavior survived for generations: "Wolves that learned to read people's faces." So his interesting thesis is: "Wolves that approached humans domesticated themselves."

With the sedentary development of man and the development of agriculture and livestock breeding, the partnership between dog and man has become exploitation by humans. Maybe that's true, there are many domesticated, but not socialized dogs. Maybe the strays and poachers just want to escape exploitation? Therefore, one scientifically distinguishes the domestic dogs again from those that do not live in social community with humans, but wild as wolves.

Thomas Mann, the rabbit hunter

Every lap dog owner is reminded that domestic dogs belong to the order of predators, Carnivora, as soon as he pushes the lips away from his darling and opens the mouth in which the hook or canine teeth can be dangerously long even with only calf-high specimens. Not to mention the posterior fangs in the upper and lower jaw, which are not used to chew blueberries (although many dogs like blueberries), but to crush meat.

The many civil tasks that dogs perform with fun and for which they are remunerated and treated well make it all the more incomprehensible why someone would be called a "stupid dog". They rescue buried mountaineers or skiers or plunge death-defyingly into blackberry hedges to disturb the wild boars hidden in them from the hunting party. The hunting passion of some breeds is legendary. "Senses and physique are optimized for life as a hunter," writes Joscha Grolms in his great reference book "Tierspuren Europas".

The best story of Thomas Mann in his book "Herr und Hund", rich in interesting observations, but also brutal behavior towards his favorite dog Bauschan, is that of an unusual rabbit hunt. The rabbit, chased by Bauschan, suddenly comes rushing towards the hunter, who speculates that the animal must mistake the dog owner standing still for a tree: "Was he out of his mind with fear of death? Enough, he jumped up on me, just like a dog, ran up with his front paws on my overcoat, and strove upright with his head into my lap, into the hunting master's terrible lap!"