- A new study reveals that dogs are incredibly good at forging shortcuts in unfamiliar areas.
- The impressive ability appears to be connected to dogs being able to tap into their own internal compass, governed by Earth’s magnetic field.
- The dogs proved to be excellent at devising their own routes, even when they were not oriented, to find their target smoothly.
Dogs are man’s best friends, but while we may think that our four-legged friends rely heavily on us, they possess some abilities that humans can only dream of. Their sense of smell is much sharper than ours, their sight can detect even the slightest movement, and as new research reveals, they seem to be in tune with Earth’s magnetic field in a way that allows them to find shortcuts. when they travel.
Dogs seem to have the ability to navigate toward a goal by forging new and more efficient paths than they already know. This suggests an ability to sense direction and location based on an internal compass that has, until now, not been studied.
As part of the investigation, the team tracked dogs using the GPS while hiking them to wooded areas. By mapping the dogs’ behaviors when they ventured on their own, the researchers discovered three types of scouting behavior.
“Follow-up” behavior is characterized by the animal following the same path to return to its point of origin as when they first ventured. This is typically what humans do by forging a path and then using that path to find their way back without getting lost.
Different behavior, which the researchers called “scouting,” reveals that dogs can blindly travel to a forested location, reach their tipping point where they decided to return, and then take a completely different path to return to the same location. they started. The researchers also looked at cases of combinations of the two techniques, with dogs traveling their route backwards before making their way to a new route that was more efficient in reaching their destination.
The team recruited 27 hunting dogs for the experiments and ran more than 600 tests to get a good idea of how good the dogs are at finding shortcuts on their own.
“When they returned to the owner (to their home), the dogs followed their exit route (‘crawl’) or used a new route (‘scan’),” the researchers write. “The driveway during exploration started primarily with a short run (about 20m) along the north-south geomagnetic axis, regardless of the actual direction towards home. Carrying out such a ‘compass’ significantly increased the efficiency of the reference run. We propose that this race is instrumental in recording the mind map with the magnetic compass and setting the animal’s course. “
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in virtual reality, handheld devices, smartphones, and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot, and has appeared on USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and in print. His love of reporting is second only to his addiction to gambling.
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