Dogs may be using earth’s magnetic field like an internal compass, a new study finds

With their strong sense of smell and unparalleled gift for tracking, dogs have sometimes been called “fur missiles,” and a recent study reveals another reason they may be so good at “homing” in.

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, dogs are likely using the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, an international team of researchers contend in their recent study, published in eLife, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Dogs seem to have an internal compass that helps them find their way back to a given location despite great distance, through unfamiliar territory, and without any landmarks, according to the study.

Other animals, most notably birds, have demonstrated this ability. But when it comes to dogs, far less is known.

“Despite anecdotal reports of the astonishing homing abilities in dogs, their homing strategies are not fully understood,” researchers wrote.

To investigate, researchers fastened GPS collars and cameras to 27 hunting dogs, repeatedly set them loose in many different forested areas, for a total of 622 trials, according to the study.

“Hunting dogs … have been selected over generations to detect and pursue tracks of game animals and, if not followed by the hunter, to return to the place where the pursuit started,” researchers explained. “How dogs pinpoint the owner’s location using novel routes of return in highly variable densely forested habitats remains perplexing.”

The dogs chose two methods when returning to their owners — either following their own trail back, called “tracking,” or by blazing an entirely new path, which the researchers refer to as “scouting.”

Researchers noticed a strange behavior when dogs were scouting. Before starting their trek back, they would first run 20 meters (about 65 feet) along a north-south geomagnetic axis, no matter the location of their owner.

Of the 622 trials, dogs returned by “scouting” 223 times, making their north-south run in 170 of them.

Researchers suspect that short run calibrates the canines, helping them find their bearings before setting off.

Breed doesn’t seem to make any noticeable difference. Neither does the sun’s position, or the weather, or the location dogs were brought to.

As for why it works, the team isn’t sure. But further study is warranted, they say.

“The research suggests that the magnetic field may provide dogs (and mammals generally) with a ‘universal’ reference frame, which is essential for long-distance navigation and arguably the most important component that is ‘missing’ from our current understanding of mammalian spatial behavior and cognition,” the study said.

This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 2:19 PM with the headline "Dogs may be using earth’s magnetic field like an internal compass, a new study finds."