What the dog says in this poem is true. Human beings have very little sense of smell. A cat scents a mouse and traces it to its place of hiding. A trained police dog will follow the day-old scent of a criminal for many miles, after he has been given a scrap of clothing worn by the hunted man. A stag turns his head to the wind and flares his nostrils wide as he picks up the scent of the animal that stalks him hundreds of yards away. Man pays a price for civilisation. Because he no longer needs a sense of smell as a signal to alert himself to attack or defend, he is able to identify only scents of extreme sweetness, or strength, or bitterness. What is more, he has in the last century dulled what little sense of smell he had left by filling the air of his towns and cities with the overpowering stench of factory smoke, petrol and diesel exhaust fumes and the gases of burning chemicals. How strange it would seem if we could suddenly smell as clearly as we can see, and recognise one scent from another as readily as we can distinguish one colour from another!

Have you read that fine story by Paul Gallico about the little boy who becomes a kitten? The book is called Jennie after the cat who adopts him when he runs, terrified by the noise and dangers of the city, into an old warehouse where she lives. In this extract, she teaches him to use his sense of smell:

Jennie had got up now and was standing on the edge of the opening with only her head out, whiskers extended forward, quivering a little, and making small wrinkly movements with her nose. After a moment or so of this she turned to Peter quite relaxed, and said, ‘All clear. We can go now. No cats around. There's a dog been by, but only a mangy cur probably afraid of his own shadow. There's a tea boat just docked. That's good. The Watchman won't really have any responsibilities until she's unloaded. Rain's all cleared away. Probably won't rain for another forty-eight hours. Goods train just gone down into the docks area.