How do dogs determine their directions? - Page 2

GSD TRAVELS- I have not seen the movie ,Ill try to download it, if I do not find it I ll order it from a big shop in the UK. 

Thanks

I've seen that movie a couple of times, it is very good, you won't be sorry Tarek. I never realized it was based on a true story! It tugs on the ol' heartstrings, too. You get to hate John Travolta sometimes, though and I usually don't like to hate him...

Travolta is one of my favorite actors, I like him since Saturday Night Fever
I already commenced my search for the movie.

Beetree & GSDtravels - I have just heard the song of the movie on the you tube. It is fantastic. By the way I have seen this movie once but I cannot remember he full details.

I believe it is all based on scent, their ability to re-trace their steps.  It might not be strictly speaking their own scent or their master's scent or the car's scent that they are doubling back on as in tracking...

Sometimes I think that maybe they are "telling" themselves a story when they travel- like the aboriginees in Australia with their "storylines" but solely with scent.

For example, the trip starts out with smells of home, then comes the clump of dandilions and bunnies in the long field, then a house where they cook all the time with onions, then there is the heavily oiled asphalt, then the graveyard, then...

Beyond this phenomenal scenting ability, I wonder if they don't have a much more acute sense of magnetic fields- and thus there sense of direction- like the geese heading south and the whales on their migrations...

Just sayin...


( I have been on more than one hike where if I am a bit disoriented I defer to my dog to get us back to camp... )

Freemont- Very logical. Cannot get a better explanation.

Thanks

Tarekallam,
It's such an interesting question. My father sold a young border collie when I was a child (to a farm about 20 miles away). The next morning she was sitting on our doorstep!

There has been little success in explaining pigeon homing never mind dogs' sense of direction, but it is something which is fascinating. Apparently the human sense of direction is much better developed in some peoples, such as the bushmen of the Kalahari or Polynesian navigators, than in more modern urban populations. There must be something evolutionary here, but also freemonts idea re magnetic fields is very interesting. It also makes me think about what we think of dogs' seemingly telepathic behaviours (e.g. when they go to the door 10 mins before you arrive - even when there is no routine to your arrival).

I love this story re the lab who found his way home by train - very modern! Sadly he passed away recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8375871.stm

Muldoon- This is another good story showing another merical. So sorry that Archei died.

If your lost what's the first thing you do?
You look up and you use your brain, and you have a memory of where things should be.
Sun, Moon, Stars, hills and mountains, rivers, the sky first then the land.
We don't notice it but the Earth has a scent, so do rivers and the oceans, different terrain has different scents, the prevailing winds carry scent and follow a direction.
Animals are more aware of all of this than most humans.
Now pigeons and some migrating birds can travel great distances at night, in heavy cloud cover, no moon or stars and can see nothing, I believe they can feel the earths magnetic fields and its rotation added to all the other sensory information.
A dog riding in a car is looking out the window just as you would, they see where they are going and can remember it.
And then there is luck, they all don't find their way.  
Ducks and Geese may follow a flyway but it can be hundreds of miles wide.
I don't see it as a miracle at all.
And Lassie had help.......lol

In the Arabic language we have the word "MOALEM" which means teacher & / or professor.

Moons the way you explain dogs behavior would very easily puts in this category.

You are the MOALEM when it comes to explaining dogs manner & behavior.

Thanks