Internal compass: this is how dogs find their way back home

They can smell a lot better than we do – and now we know that they even have a superpower: dogs can sense the earth’s magnetic field. This could even help the four-legged friends find their way home if they got lost.

Dogs are sensitive to the earth’s magnetic field. As early as 2013, researchers found that dogs orientate themselves along the north-south axis for their business, especially when they make a pile. They have shown that dogs are capable of magnetoreception – that is, they can feel the earth’s magnetic field.

And you are not alone in that: Other animal species such as birds, lobsters, turtles and rainbow trout can do that. However, the phenomenon has been researched much better in migratory animal species like these than in dogs.

In a recent study, researchers have now examined the influence of the magnetic field on the orientation of dogs. To do this, the scientists equipped four dogs with GPS trackers and video cameras. One student regularly walked the four-legged friends in a forest area.

The researchers primarily examined the animals’ hunting behavior: when the dogs chased a prey, they moved an average of 400 meters away from the student. In order to return to him, some followed their own scent trail and reached their companion on the same route.

Others took a completely new route. The scientists spoke in the case of scouting.

Dogs use a magnetic field as an internal compass
When they were evaluating the dogs’ GPS data, the researchers made an interesting discovery: at some point during the scouting, the dogs turned away and walked around 20 meters along the north-south axis before walking back to the student.

To study this phenomenon more closely, the researchers checked 27 hunting dogs over a period of three years. This enabled them to study 223 running routes.

On 170 routes – i.e. three quarters – the dogs also stopped at some point and ran 20 meters along the north-south axis. As a result, the dogs usually took a more direct route back to humans. Hynek Burda, one of the co-authors of the study, suspects that the dogs run along this line to orient themselves. “It is the most plausible explanation.”

Research result only partially plausible
Nevertheless, there is one difficulty in setting up the experiment: one would actually have to exclude all other senses in order to examine the magnetic sense of dogs. The researchers therefore want to repeat their experiment soon – with magnets on the dogs’ collars. These would disturb the local magnetic field. If the dogs’ routes were then different, that would be further evidence that magnetoreception exists in dogs.

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