Dogs Stick Their Heads Out of the Car Window While Driving Due to Scents6 photos

There are many funny online photos of dogs sticking their heads out of the car window while driving: the wind blows their fur apart, and their faces look blissful. It’s clear that dogs enjoy doing this, but why?

The reason is scents. Dogs rely heavily on their noses because their vision isn’t very good, but their sense of smell is incredible. Human olfactory membranes have 5 million scent receptors or “smell cells,” while dogs have more than 225 million.

When air moves over the olfactory membrane, scent molecules settle on these receptors and are recognized. The wind blowing into a dog’s face during fast driving brings a huge amount of information to their brains, so they stick their nose out of the window to better understand their surroundings and gain new experiences.