Remember the last monsoon drizzle and the smell from the moist soil, or that moment when you discovered the gas was leaking in your kitchen? These examples tell us that we can differentiate between a variety of odors and their intensities. We possess this ability because olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) in our nose can sense different odorants, just our tongue’s taste buds can detect different flavours. How does this smell sense develop? Do we ‘learn’ to smell and discern different odors and their intensities through experience or are these abilities that we are born with? Or is it a combination of both processes? If learning is involved, at which development stage do we ‘learn’? These are some of the questions central to understanding the experience-dependent modification of animal behavior.