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It’s obvious that dogs have more powerful noses than humans, but what about their ears? While dogs are often said to have much better hearing than people, the reality is more nuanced. Dogs excel at hearing high-frequency sounds and can detect noises that are too quiet or too high-pitched for humans to hear. However, for many everyday sounds, dog and human hearing are more similar than you might think.
Why Dogs Hear High-Pitched Sounds Bette
Hertz (Hz) is a measure of the frequency of a sound. The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch. This is where dogs truly stand out.
The average adult human cannot hear sounds above 20,000 Hz, although young children may hear slightly higher frequencies. Dogs, however, can hear sounds as high as 47,000 to 65,000 Hz.
Dogs can also detect much quieter sounds at higher frequencies. Sound intensity is measured in decibels (dB), with 0 dB representing the quietest sound a young person can typically hear. Sounds quieter than that carry negative decibel values.
According to Stanley Coren, Ph.D., in his book, “How Dogs Think,” “The truth of the matter is that, for some sounds, a dog’s hearing is really hundreds of times better than ours, whereas for other sounds, dogs and humans have sound sensitivities that are very much the same.”
Coren explains that when sounds fall between 3,000 and 12,000 Hz, dogs’ hearing is significantly more sensitive than that of humans. Dogs can hear those sounds at average levels between -5 dB and -15 dB, allowing them to detect noises that are effectively inaudible to people. For sounds above 12,000 Hz, dogs’ hearing is so much more sensitive that direct comparisons become difficult.
How Predatory Ancestry Shaped Dog Hearing
Dogs’ remarkable ability to hear high-pitched sounds likely comes from their evolutionary history.
Wolves, the ancestors of domestic dogs, often hunted small rodents such as mice. Detecting the squeaks of small prey could provide a survival advantage, making acute high-frequency hearing particularly valuable.
Humans evolved under different pressures. Because communication with other people was vital, human hearing became especially attuned to the frequencies people use in speech.
This difference helps explain several common observations about dogs. Their ability to react before an earthquake may stem from detecting sounds or vibrations beyond human perception. Likewise, dogs often seem to know someone is arriving home before anyone else because they can hear a vehicle approaching from farther away.
Dogs’ sensitivity to high-pitched sounds may also contribute to noise-related anxiety. Everyday household devices such as vacuum cleaners and power drills can seem much louder to dogs, and those devices may produce frequencies that humans cannot hear at all.
Dogs and Humans Hear Differently
When it comes to the remaining detectable frequency range, dogs and humans can both hear these sounds, and the sensitivity of our ears is about the same.
The biggest difference lies in where each species hears best. Human hearing reaches peak sensitivity around 2,000 Hz, which falls near the center of human speech frequencies. Dogs, by contrast, have maximum sensitivity around 8,000 Hz, a range better suited to detecting small prey animals and other high-pitched sounds.
Dogs are also exceptionally good at distinguishing subtle changes in pitch. Coren adds that they can hear “the difference between the musical note C and another note that differs by one-eighth of the distance between that C note and C sharp.”
Humans do hold an advantage in one area: locating sounds. People can detect a difference between two sounds that differ in location by an angle of only one degree. Dogs generally require about eight degrees of separation to distinguish where sounds are coming from.
How Researchers Test a Dog’s Hearing
Studying hearing in dogs presents challenges that researchers don’t face when testing people. Humans can simply describe what they hear, but dogs cannot.
Early hearing studies trained dogs to press a lever when they detected a sound. Today, researchers use a more advanced method called the Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) hearing test
During a BAER test, a technician places electrodes on a dog’s head while earphones deliver sounds at different frequencies and volumes. Researchers monitor the brain’s electrical activity to determine whether the dog heard the sound. The test is painless and typically takes only a short time to complete.
What Happens When Dogs Lose Their Hearing?
Like people, dogs can experience hearing loss as they age. Hearing may also decline because of medical conditions, including severe ear infections.
The BAER test can help determine the extent of hearing loss and identify whether a dog is partially or completely deaf. Fortunately, most dogs adapt well hearing changes and can continue to communicate effectively using visual cues, body language, and hand signals.
Interestingly, the ability to detect high-pitched sounds is often the last aspect of hearing to decline. As a result, some dogs may still respond to louder, high-frequency sounds, like a whistle, even after they have difficulty hearing human voices.