The Dog's Cold Nose, from The United Mine Workers Journal 1915
When your faithful old dog pokes his nose into your hand, even your affection cannot prevent a shiver. Why is it? When the body of a dog is so warm, why should this one spot be different from the rest of him? The old fable tells us that when Noah tried to get all the animals into the ark some of them were troublesome, and he had to get a dog to help him drive the last to enter the ark. There was no room left, so he had to stand in the doorway with his nose outside in the wet, and it has never been warm since. Science gives quite another explanation of the matter. The coldness of a dog's nose, says science, is due to the fact that it must be kept moist all the time in order to sharpen his sense of smell. And, as the moisture is cooled by the air, it keeps his nose cold all the time. In addition to the olfactory or smelling nerves inside a dog's nostrils, the whole black membrane around the nose is very sensitive, and this sensitiveness can only be retained by moisture. Thus it is that when a dog's nose is dry and warm he is ill and needs doctoring.
When your faithful old dog pokes his nose into your hand, even your affection cannot prevent a shiver. Why is it? When the body of a dog is so warm, why should this one spot be different from the rest of him? The old fable tells us that when Noah tried to get all the animals into the ark some of them were troublesome, and he had to get a dog to help him drive the last to enter the ark. There was no room left, so he had to stand in the doorway with his nose outside in the wet, and it has never been warm since. Science gives quite another explanation of the matter. The coldness of a dog's nose, says science, is due to the fact that it must be kept moist all the time in order to sharpen his sense of smell. And, as the moisture is cooled by the air, it keeps his nose cold all the time. In addition to the olfactory or smelling nerves inside a dog's nostrils, the whole black membrane around the nose is very sensitive, and this sensitiveness can only be retained by moisture. Thus it is that when a dog's nose is dry and warm he is ill and needs doctoring.
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