Dogs · Matters.com — Can dogs smell seizures in strangers?
Digest Newsletter
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Nov 6, 2026
Dogs · Matters.com — Can dogs smell seizures in strangers?
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Study: dogs may smell seizures in total strangers
A new study reports that dogs can detect seizure events in people they've never met, suggesting it isn't just special training or owner-attachment doing the heavy lifting. Researchers exposed pet dogs to scent samples linked to seizures and found consistent detection above chance — the finding raises the possibility of a low-cost, widely deployable early-warning tool for epilepsy. Read the paper and coverage here: dogs may smell seizures.
Chernobyl dogs evolving
A genetic study finds wild dogs around Chernobyl show signs of directional selection, meaning the population isn’t just surviving by chance but changing in response to the environment — full story: Chernobyl's dogs are genetically different.
Austin’s Major ordered released
A federal judge has ruled that Major, the city-confiscated dog, must be released from Austin’s custody — a reminder that legal fights over individual animals can set broader policy precedents: Major still in shelter.
Big dogs age faster
New research confirms what many owners suspect: large breeds biologically age faster than small breeds, a finding that should influence how we schedule checkups and preventative care — more here: study on dog aging.
How powerful is a dog’s nose?
Dogs have up to about 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses — compared with around 6 million in humans — and a brain region devoted to smell that’s proportionally much larger, which is why scent-based detection (from search-and-rescue to medical alerts) works so well.