You may have recently heard the story about the lost dog who ended up 60 miles away at his previous home. Odd stories like this seem to happen frequently with dogs and science may have figured out why.
A new study suggests that dogs may be able to sense the Earth’s magnetic fields! It specifically suggests hunting dogs may be particularly gifted with this special sense of direction.
“This ‘sense’ is beyond our own human perception and it is, therefore, very hard to understand its meaning for animals,” study researcher Kateřina Benediktová, at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, told Live Science.
There had been previous research that suggested dogs like to poop aligned with the magnetic north-south axis. Don’t we all?
It’s believed that the perfectly-aligned pooping helps dogs map their location. This makes sense, especially if they are truly sensing the Earth’s magnetic fields. It also explains why our pups spin in circles as they reach optimal hovering height to drop brown bombs.
How The Study Worked
The recent study focuses on hunting dogs. This is because their homing abilities far exceed other breeds. Hunting dogs have been bred to find animals and return to their owners if they’re unsuccessful. This means they have an incredible ability to navigate dense forests to return back to their hunting buddies unassisted.
Benediktová’s team enlisted 27 hunting dogs across 10 different breeds. The pups were equipped with GPS trackers – and their powerful sniffers, of course. Once the GPS was strapped on, the daring doggos were sent off into forested areas to roam freely.
Each pup took a 30-to-90-minute excursion, fully secluded from buildings, powerlines, and roads. Their owners hid close by the location where the dogs had started their trek.
In total, there were 622 excursions in 62 locations across the Czech Republic. The data was collected from all of these trips. It was then analyzed and gave researchers some interesting insight!
The Results May Surprise You
Most of the dogs followed their own scent back to the starting point. This is called tracking, and it’s common for many dogs (think police K9s). However, in 223 of the excursions, dogs did a thing called “scouting.”
Most of the dogs who did “scouting” started their journey back with a quick run along Earth’s north-south axis, regardless of what direction their actual return path would be.
Researchers believe this quick jaunt along the axis was the dogs’ way of getting a mental picture of where they were. Interestingly, these dogs returned to their owners significantly quicker than the dogs who used tracking.
Dogs aren’t the only animals to use the Earth’s magnetic field to orient themselves. It’s known behavior in migratory birds, whales, and dolphins to name a few. However, this is the first glimpse inside of our dogs’ brains in regards to their navigational abilities. Further research will be conducted but I think we can all admit we’re pretty amazed already!
h/t: LiveScience.com
Featured Photo: @nobleshots/Unsplash.com
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