2015考研英语阅读人类与狗狗_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读人类与狗狗

　　Mr Bradshaw believes that it is difficult for people to empathise with the way in which dogsexperience and respond to the world through their extraordinary sense of smell: theirsensitivity to odours is between 10,000 and 100,000 times greater than ours. A newlypainted room might be torture for a dog; on the other hand, their olfactory ability and theirtrainability allow dogs to perform almost unimaginable feats, such as smelling the earlystages of a cancer long before a normal medical diagnosis would detect it.

　　Mr Bradshaw 认为，人类很难理解狗狗是如何凭借它们出色的嗅觉来体验、感知世界并做出反应的：它们对气味的灵敏度是人类的1万-10万倍。住进一个刚粉刷过的房间对狗狗来说可能是酷刑;另一方面，它们超敏锐的嗅觉和可训练的特性让狗狗几乎能完成各种超乎想像的事情，例如，在医生做出诊断之前，狗狗就能嗅出患者的早期癌症。

　　The latest scientific research can help dogs and their owners have happier, healthierrelationships by encouraging people to understand dogs better. But Mr Bradshaw is alsofearful. In particular, he deplores the incestuous narrowing of the gene pool that modernpedigree breeders have brought about. Dogs today are rarely bred for their working abilities, but for a very particular type of appearance, whichinevitably risks the spread of physical and temperamental abnormalities. Instead, hesuggests that dogs be bred for the ideal behavioural traits associated with the role they willactually play. He also worries that the increasing urbanisation of society and the pressures oncouples to work long hours are putting dogs under huge strain. He estimates that about 20%of Britain s 8m dogs and America s 70m suffer from separation distress when their ownersleave the house, but argues that sensible training can teach them how to cope.