Dogs love to have their head out of car windows. Also, you often see dogs standing in the back of pickup trucks with their head around the cab looking in the direction of travel.
Having the breeze blowing in your face can’t be that comfortable, so why do they do it?
Sensory Stimulation In Dogs
Using his senses, a dog is able to learn much more about his environment than we are. His hearing is more acute than ours and he can hear sounds over a wider range of frequencies. They can hear sounds from four times further away than we can. They can pinpoint the exact source of a sound and can differentiate between sounds much better than us.
They often know that their owner is about to arrive home because they can hear his car coming from several blocks away.
A dog’s sense of smell is also far superior to ours. The part of a dog’s brain that analyses smell is proportionally 40 times bigger than ours. His nose contains up to 300 million smell receptors compared to our 6 million. Dogs are able to accomplish incredible smelling feats. There is a record of a drug-detecting dog finding a parcel of marijuana which was submerged in a gas tank which was full of petrol.
One area where the dog’s senses are not vastly superior to ours is eyesight. Their eyes perform better in some areas and ours perform better in others. A human’s eye is better for seeing detail, but a dog is able to see in much dimmer light.
All this adds up to a dog having a head which is crammed full of sensors.
Dog’s Love Using their Senses
Dogs really enjoy using their senses. Some dog breeds have been developed to use one sense more than others. Examples of this are sight hounds and scent hounds.
You just have to take your dog for a walk on a leash to understand how much he uses his sense of smell. Left to his own devices, he will spend what seems like hours examining a scent.
The increasingly popular sport of Nose Work is another example of how much dogs enjoy using their sense of smell.
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You may have noticed that, when you are returning from a car trip with your dog, he may give an indication that he knows he is nearly home. There is strong evidence that he is using his sense of smell to tell him where he is.
Your Dog Puts His Head Out Of The Car Window.
When your dog has his head out of the window, his senses are bombarded with information. Dogs want to explore. Off the leash, they will examine every part of an area they are in. The breeze blowing over their face allows them to do the same thing on a grand scale.
There is also evidence that dogs simply enjoy feeling the breeze on their face.
Is It Dangerous For A Dog to Put His Head Out Of A Car The Window?
The short answer to this question is yes!
When the breeze is blowing in your dog’s face, his eyes are exposed to dust, rocks and other debris. His eyeballs can get scratched and even punctured.
The constant flapping of his ears can cause the earflaps to become irritated or inflamed.
If your dog becomes overexcited at the sight of something, he could force his way through the opening. This could result in severe injury or even death.
Even though it means denying your dog much enjoyment, the safest place for him to be is on the back seat properly restrained. The window can be slightly open to let in fresh air, but he should not be able to put his head through.
