their other senses, especially smell. Just as we use to some (far lesser) degree smell and tactile awareness (air pressure, air movement), and sound, too, but mainly our vision, dogs use their vision, but to a much greater degree their sense of smell, which is at least 100,000 times more powerful than ours.
Dogs have 2 billion olfactory receptors, compared to 40 million for humans! A wolf can smell prey almost 2 miles away. Dogs also hear way better than we do. Your pup probably could both hear and smell exactly where that ball was.
Remember how Magic Johnson used to successfully pass the basketball behind his back, through multiple defenders, and to a specific teammate, while moving rapidly in another direction and not even glancing in the direction of his targeted receiver? He was using a highly developed sense of visual awareness. Once he saw where everyone was, as well as how, where, and how fast they were moving, he instantaneously and without conscious calculation predicted where the opening and his target would be, and at what moment. He then could deceive the defenders chasing him by looking and moving in a direction completely unconnected to where he would send the ball.
Your dog pulled off the same feat, using his sense of smell and his hearing rather than vision. Probably both Magic Johnson and your dog also unconsciously let their awareness of air movement and pressure reinforce and clarify positioning as well.
I am severely hearing impaired. I am far more aware than most people of how sensitive we are to air movement and air pressure, because I use it to inform me of when someone is moving around me--entering or leaving the room, approaching me from outside of my visual field, etc. I can usually tell, too, whether the person is large or small.
Vision is, if you will excuse the counterintuitive metaphor, loud in humans. It drowns out our awareness of the input from our other senses, even when we receive and respond to that multivalent input.
You could train your pup to be even more of a Jedi by playing catch with progressively more difficult tosses, so he can gradually build up his awareness of variations in the smell, sound, and movement of the ball as it is rolled, tossed low, tossed higher, etc.
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