Dog Breeders’ Tinkering Produced Breeds With Reorganized Brains

Hounds, pointers, and other dogs bred for their excellent abilities to pick up a scent tend to have longer snouts—but it’s not just that a bigger nose is a better one. Researchers have found that human domestication of dogs has shifted the structure and alignment of some dogs’ brains. And in those varieties with shorter snouts—which humans bred for other reasons, like appearance—the olfactory brain region rotated to a different part of their skull, leaving scientists to question whether we’ve crossed up their smelling abilities (and perhaps more).