Nature
PUBLISHED
8
Magnetoreception, the ability to sense Earth's magnetic field, lies beyond the realms of human physiology, but it’s widespread across many parts of the animal kingdom, from birds and bees to whales and sea turtles. Even the humble dog appears to possess a sensitivity to the planet's magnetic field, though for reasons still unclear, they use it to align themselves while pooping.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.This observation comes from a 2013 study by researchers at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, who tracked the body orientation of 70 dogs, including 37 different breeds, during defecation (1,893 cases) and urination (5,582 cases), over a two-year period.
Throughout the research, the team took care to rule out other potential influences on how the dogs positioned themselves, including the owner's behavior, the direction of the Sun, and prevailing weather conditions.
Their findings showed that dogs consistently align their bodies along Earth's North-South magnetic axis when squatting to relieve themselves, while actively avoiding an East-West orientation. Crucially, when the magnetic field is disrupted by natural fluctuations, such as those caused by solar magnetic storms, the dogs abandon their magnetically aligned defecation session.
This, the scientists suggested, indicates that dogs may be highly sensitive to small changes in the magnetic field. Why this sensitivity appears to kick in during bathroom breaks remains a mystery. Like many animals, however, the ability may be connected to navigation and spatial orientation.
“An answer may lie in the biological meaning of the behavior: if dogs would use a visual (radical-pair based) magnetic map to aid general orientation in space, as has been proposed for rodents, they might have the need to center/calibrate the map now and then with regard to landmarks or a magnetic reference Aligning the map and the view towards North (or South) facilitates reading the map,” the study authors write.
“We might think of this the same way as a human is stopping during a hike to read a map,” they add.
Speculative as this is, it’s supported by later research from the same institution. In 2020, their study of hunting dogs suggested that hounds align themselves along the North-South axis before embarking on a return journey. Once they had gotten their bearings, the roving canines were able to use that knowledge to take shortcuts and get back home. If their previous study is anything to go by, this was presumably achieved after squatting and relieving themselves.
More research is needed to separate signal from noise and build a clearer picture of how dogs use the magnetic field to navigate the world. In the meantime, we wouldn't recommend using your pet’s bathroom habits as a compass just yet.
