Hope and Imagination - What Scout Smells

What dogs smell, we see, and how to try to understand the experiences of others

Jun 12, 2025

First off, before getting to Scout, I want to offer up a shout out to science. Towards the end of my time in Mexico City, I came down with some kind of digestive issue and wow...did not feel well. Got home Monday night and got an appt with my doctor yesterday. Cipro was prescribed and I feel about 1000x better today. So, a massive shout out to science - I love the imagination that scientists employ in their work in trying to see what can be made better, known deeper, and understood further. And I love how much better I feel today because of their imagination!

So, onto Scout. One of the realities of our dog is that walks are a combination of walking and stopping (a lot of stopping). As she is a mix between a bluetick hound and a beagle, she is extra scent driven. This is one of the reasons I don’t run with Scout - I can only imagine running along and then getting yanked hard because Scout found a particularly interesting scent. Scout and I have generally come to an agreement on our walks - I will generally stop for her to sniff for a bit and she will stop when I need to pull out my camera. We have an understanding.1

But as one whose human sense of smell is much less than many other humans (ask my wife about how much seasoning I put on things to get it to my taste and smell preferences), I do wonder how much more of the world Scout picks up on than I do. For example, this was on Tuesday morning.

So I look at that and see simply a patch of rogue grass growing in the middle of a gravel path. Even if I bent down and stuck my nose in the grass, I might only smell some hint of the grass smell but that would likely be about it. As I looked at where Scout was sniffing, I didn’t see anything. But she was locked in and was on some scent and was sniffing so much at it that I could hear her when I was standing up. She does a thing as well where she kind of snorts (blowing out) air when she’s sniffing like that - I think it is to get the scents “kicked up” a bit.

Estimates range but it is fair to say that a dog’s sense of smell is 1000s of times stronger than a human’s. Wikipedia’s article says 10,000,000x stronger but that seemed to be a bit of an outlier. Maybe that is referring to Scout compared to me! Anyway, I can only imagine what Scout “sees” in the world around her.

I read an article (and then several books) by scientist/researcher Alexandra Horowitz about her work with dogs. The first article of hers that I read was about how she undertook a project to sniff everything that her dog did while out on walks. Here’s an interview from her college about her work.

Professor Alexandra Horowitz Explores the Power of a Dog’s Nose

I was fascinated by the idea of trying to understand what a dog is experiencing in the world. Now I haven’t bent down to sniff everything Scout does - goodness knows there are some things she is fascinated by that I want to stay as far away from as I can (I’m looking at those who do not pick up after their dogs on trails). But this speaks to what happens when we work to experience the world through how others do. When we imagine the life experience of another (especially when it is rooted in their own first person accounts - interviews, conversations, books, etc), we can have our imagination stirred in beautiful ways. Empathy shows up and grows up in those moments. And when we are living with more imagination and empathy, I see that’s where hope emerges. Hope that we can live a little better together, hope that we can understand one another better, hope that we can live into a different world.

I was listening to an interview with Tony Gilroy, the creator and writer of Andor (which I wrote about in depth a few posts ago) and he was responding to a question about the way the show represented the depth of relationships and connections in and with places and people. He said:

“That is, you are right at the hot center of the whole thing in several pieces. I mean, empathy, yes.
Empathy, empathy, empathy. I mean, I just did a whole long interview trying to explain why Hollywood is more progressive by nature, because there's nothing like pretending to be other people to make you realize that maybe you should look beyond your own momentary needs.”2

And after all, one of the central lines of the show is that “rebellions are built on hope.” But this requires trying to enter into the experience of others and beyond our selves.

in Philippians 2, Paul has a beautiful poetic piece where he encourages his readers to have the same mind as Jesus did he writes:

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

And this was prefaced by Paul encouraging them to:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

The same message - entering into the life experiences of others…

Shortly after the moment above with Scout sniffing, we walked through this part of the trail.

The photo doesn’t show it very well but it was a really magical moment - there was a wonderful yellow warmth throughout, there were glistens of heavy dew on many of the leaves, birds were chiping, and there was a beautiful coolness in the air (especially for mid-June). But I wonder if Scout experienced it in the same way? Did she see the beauty in that moment as I did? What beauty and wonder was Scout seeing that I was not?

Transformation can happen when we try to understand, hope, and have our imagination stirred through the expeirence of others. And goodness do we need more of that today.

What can you do today to have your imagination
stirred about the experiences of others?

A few other imagination moments:

Monday morning when Scout and I went for a very short walk (stomach was not in a great place, so it was a short walk) and saw babies at the lake for the first time this year. There was a bunch of little goslings and then this little duck family. I didn’t get this on video but the little duckling out ahead looked like it was playing with its mother. The mom would swim closer and the little one would swim super fast ahead, the mom would catch up, and the little one would zoom off. It was so sweet and fun, or at least that’s how I was imagining it!

And then this - same walk as the “sniff” one with Scout. These two flowers that were on the path - got me thinking back to the purple ones from the other day. What’s the story behind these? Maybe not a wedding or something like that but instead something else? Maybe some had been given a bouquet of flowers and a few fell?