What does a dog hear?
One of the most diverse features throughout the canine world are a dog’s ears, they vary considerably from breed to breed. From the erect, pointed ears of a Husky to the floppy, long and pendent styled ears of a Basset hound. Whatever their shape the ears of a dog are much more sensitive than ours and they can pick up noises that you & I, as ‘mere’ humans miss.
They hear sounds in a much higher frequency range than we do, we hear noises within approximately 20Hz, hertz is a unit of frequency, and 20,000 Hz. Sounds ranging below 20 Hz are usually not audible, although you can normally ‘feel’ the sound, comparable to when you listen to the bass sound of a song, you can ‘feel’ the music. We cannot normally hear any sounds above 20,000 Hz.
Dogs have a different hearing scale, theirs is approximately 40 Hz through to 60,000 Hz this is dependable on their breed and also their age. As we become deaf as we grow older so do many dogs.
A dog that has heard a sound will immediately prick their ears upright to allow them to pick up the noise quickly. Dogs have an amazing range of mobility with their ears, this allows them to hear sounds and also to use their ears to maximum benefit to filter the noise.
We will sometimes cup our ear to attempt to hear a sound better, some breeds of dogs, German Shepherds for instance, already have erect ears that are naturally curved so their ears will hear more sound than a Cocker Spaniel whose ears are pendent (hanging down) and not as mobile.
So you can comprehend that a dog’s perception of the outdoor world is a totally different one to ours.
The dog whistles that are available emit a piercing sound at a much higher frequency than we can hear; if you watch a shepherd training a sheepdog they will invariably use whistles as the dogs can decipher the sound of a whistle above all other noises.
If your dog is shaking its head quite violently and repeatedly then it is an indication that there could be a problem somewhere within the ear. You should inspect your dog’s ears on a regular basis and familiarise yourself with their normal appearance, then if there is a problem you will be able to identify it quicker.
A common occurrence with their ears is that a foreign body, a grass seed or similar,will lodge itself in the ear causing them to shake their head or to scratch the ear. You must never try to remove the object yourself but take your dog along to your vet who will remove it safely, possibly even administering a local anaesthetic. You could do more harm than good by poking around in your dog’s ears.
So next time your dog barks and you have no idea why, just remember before you scold him/her they have probably heard something out of your frequency range and as far as they are concerned they are doing their job of alerting you by barking.
