Do you see what I smell?

Humans! Always on about visuals.

I feel compelled to inform readers that dogs see the world a little differently. Seeing red? The title asks. The answer for dogs is a resounding no!

People are normally able to identify three colour combinations (red, blue and green) while dogs are limited to two (yellow and blue). So our perception of colour is limited. We are good at distinguishing between variations of blues and yellows but have difficulty processing red and green, which likely appear to us more as browns and greys.

But don’t feel bad. While our sense of sight may not be up to scratch, our sense of smell leaves humans for dust! Your noses contain about six million receptors, while ours possesses up to an astonishing 300 million. To put it in terms of sight, what you see 500 metres away, a dog can see nearly 5000 kilometres away, just as clearly. We’re also adept at discriminating between odours. While you may detect the smell of a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee, a dog can detect it in a million litres of water.

So, while I may have a little trouble telling the special red iPhone apart from a normal black one; when you need something urgently sniffed, from diseases to bombs to drugs to cancer you know who to call!