Which special sense do dogs primarily use to gather information about their environments?

Dogs primarily rely on their sense of smell to gather information about their environments. Their olfactory system is highly developed, containing up to 300 million scent receptors compared to about 5 to 6 million in humans. This exceptional sense of smell allows dogs to detect a wide range of odors and chemical signals, enabling them to interpret their surroundings with remarkable precision.

They can identify scents at extremely low concentrations and may even distinguish between individual scents, allowing them to track animals, detect food, or recognize familiar people. The part of a dog's brain that processes smells is also disproportionately larger than in humans, signifying the importance of this sense in their behavior and interactions with the environment.

While sound, sight, and touch are also significant senses for dogs, they are not as critically relied upon as smell for understanding and navigating their surroundings. Other senses may assist in communication or alerting to danger, but the sense of smell remains the primary and most powerful tool that dogs use to gather environmental information.