Those of us who have dogs know they are pretty amazing creatures. Among others, we have assistance dogs, dogs for the vision and hearing impaired and dogs for rehabilitation. But Miss Bella shows us another use for dogs’ intelligence and that super-sensitive nose – by sniffing out dodgy reds!
Seven-year-old Miss Louisa Belle, a red Bloodhound, has such a superior sense of smell that she has been trained to detect tainted corks affecting wine.
Her owners, Michelle Edwards and Daniel Fischl, from Caulfield-based boutique wine label Linnaea, say when faced with a pile of corks, Belle meticulously selects those that have been tainted by putting them to the side with her snout.
‘She just has to sniff a barrel of wine to know whether it is off,’ says Mr Fischl, whose company buys fruit from the Napa Valley in California and Heathcote in Victoria and along with most overseas vineyards, prefer corks for their bottles.
‘Most wineries rely on the human nose but that is time-consuming, costly and nowhere near as reliable as Belle, whose nose is 2,000 times more sensitive than ours,’ he says.
Here’s cheers to Miss Belle – another clever canine!
