For five years, researchers at the California Science Center have been sniffing out the answers to hundreds of questions about dogs. Why do dogs do what they do? What makes dogs and people get along so well? You’ll find their answers at the exhibit “Dogs! A Science Tail” in Los Angeles.
Get ready for some laughs while you’re learning about canines. The exhibit has nine popular “hands on” stations. What does a fire hydrant smell like to a dog? Step up to the hydrant, push the button, and take a whiff. “We just smell pee,” Jeffrey Rudolph laughs. He’s the science center’s president. “A dog can tell what dog was there.” Mr. Rudolph says a dog also knows what time other dogs were there and which direction they were going!
At a similar station, try seeing like a dog. Dogs have limited color vision, but they see motion better than we do. Other stations show you what a dog tastes when it licks a hand. Another shows what a dog can hear. “In a bedroom they can hear a termite scratching on the wall,” Mr. Rudolph says. Some dogs’ excellent hearing helps them help people. An avalanche rescue dog can hear a person buried in snow when people can’t hear a thing. Dogs can also help save people from drowning, and find them in collapsed buildings. The science center’s IMAX Theatre will show a film about canine life savers called Superpower Dogs.
Want to see a pup in action? Museum guests can meet real therapy dogs, rescue dogs, and drug-sniffing dogs. The exhibit also includes borrowed original paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings show the love between people and their dogs.
When did the connection between dogs and people start? No one knows. Is a dog’s love real? There is science to prove it and an exhibit to explain it! When dogs and people look into each other’s’ eyes, their bodies produce a hormone called oxytocin—the “love hormone.”
God gives us good things to enjoy. The loyalty of a dog can be a tiny glimpse of God’s faithfulness to us.
For great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” ― Psalm 117:2
