Dogs are “man’s best friend” for many reasons, including being strong animals. That idea leads to an interesting question, are humans stronger than dogs? Or is it the other way around?
Humans are usually stronger than dogs when their strength-to-weight ratio is compared. This is not true when comparing jaw strength though. Also, large breeds like German Shepards and Pit Bulls exceed human strength in many ways.
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How To Compare Dog Strength To Human Strength?
Strength can mean a lot of things. For example, a person can be emotionally strong, physically strong, socially strong, or mentally strong. Even within those areas, there are different ways to be strong.
In the case of physical strength, a person can be strong in benching, but not as strong in squatting. A person could do more reps but less weight or they could hold a certain weight up longer.
So, it wouldn’t be fair to only compare the physical strength of dogs to humans. Taking multiple things into consideration, it makes the most sense to compare lifting strength, endurance, jaw strength, and the strength of senses. Let’s start with lifting strength.
Who Wins In A Lifting Competition: Dogs Or Humans?
This one is pretty easy. Humans win every time, and there’s a pretty easy explanation as to why.
If you think of a dog, they have limited ways to move their joints. They also can’t train their muscles in the same ways we can.
Humans, though, have a ton of ways to move their joints. Not only does this allow them more ways for accessing their strength, but also more ways to train that strength. In the end, humans win when it comes to physical strength.
What About Endurance?
Here’s where things get interesting. You would think that dogs would beat humans every time. After all, they are definitely faster than we are.
But endurance isn’t speed, it’s how long someone or something can keep doing an activity. In the case of running, dogs can beat us, but humans can come out on top too. There are a couple of reasons why.
One reason is that we get more chances to train for it. Another reason, the more important reason, is that sweating helps us to cool down faster and more consistently than a dog panting does. That means dogs will have to slow down and take more breaks than we do.
So, if the distance was short enough, dogs would win. If the distance were long enough though, it’s a bit more even, maybe even in our favor.
How About Jaw Strength?
There’s no contest here, dogs win every time. When it comes to jaw strength, dogs can produce 250 lbs (113.4 kilograms) of pressure per square inch. For reference, that means they can apply the pressure of a heavyweight boxer to every inch. Some breeds can even get up to 700 lbs (317.51 kilograms).
Sadly for us, humans can only produce 162 (73.48 kilograms) pounds of pressure. So, when it comes to jaw strength, humans definitely lose.
What About Strength Of The Senses?
It might be odd to compare senses, but most people would probably assume dogs win here too. That’s not always the case though. Let’s look at the easy ones first: sense of smell and hearing.
Without question, dogs win this one. On average, their sense of smell is about 40 times greater than our own. Dogs can also hear way better than us too, even high-pitched sounds and ones that are farther away. What about taste and sight though?
When it comes to sight, dogs beat us when it comes to night vision and noticing movement. According to this study, we beat them when it comes to distinguishing shapes and details.
We also beat dogs when it comes to taste. Humans have about 9,000 taste buds compared to dogs, which only have 1,700.
So Who’s Stronger Overall: Dogs Or Humans?
It’s pretty clear that humans are stronger than dogs in almost every way. Would that really matter in a fight though?
Who Would Win In A Fight: A Dog Or A Human?
If it were only about physical strength and endurance, a human would win. Dogs are aggressive, an aggressive Samoyed for example, and have built-in weapons though: teeth and claws. They’re quicker than we are too, so they can get to us, bite us with incredible strength, and it’s just downhill from there.
So, who wins in a fight? Well, most of the time it’s going to be dogs. There is a good reason many of them (but not all) make good guard dogs, after all.
In Conclusion: Are Humans Stronger Than Dogs?
Humans are stronger than most dogs in every area except jaw strength, sense of smell, hearing, and sometimes endurance. Still, if it came to a fight, we’d most likely lose, so it just goes to show that you can be good at some things, but not everything.
That said, what are your thoughts on “are humans stronger than dogs?” Ever seen a truly strong dog? What was that like? Let us know in the comments below!