Dogs are moving through a kind of internal compass - Sciences et Avenir

Berlin (AFP) – A team of German and Czech researchers says that canines have a particular sensitivity to magnetic fields, allowing them to move more easily, after studying how they defecated

.urinate or defecate

them, canines tend to stop along a north-south axis, provided that the Earth’s magnetic field is stable at this moment, found researchers at the University Duisburg-Essen (northwest Germany) and the University of Agricultural Studies of Prague, the origin of this research.

From small Yorkshire

big Saint Bernard, the team sifted through the 7,000 data collected by the owners of 70 dogs of different breeds. The researchers, however, found no significant difference in sensitivity to the magnetic field according to race, told AFP a team member, Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Essen.

“We discovered that dogs stop along a north-south axis – a little more when they defecate when they urinate – but only if the magnetic field is stable,” said Ms. Begall .

For this study, recently published by the English newspaper online “Frontiers in Zoology”, the team of ten researchers instructed 37 dog owners equipped with compasses to observe the behavior of their pets when their needs .

This discovery highlights the ability of dogs already have a sense of smell and hearing a performance, to feel the magnetic fields.

In 2008, this team of researchers had discovered, after studying images from Google Earth, tended the cattle to graze and lie along a north-south axis.

“It has been reported that dogs often travel hundreds of miles to find their way home. And the explanation for this is that they use to guide the Earth’s magnetic field,” he says Begall.

Source: AFP