The ability of dogs to find their way home may be inherited from their ancestors, the gray wolves. These wolves roamed vast lands across Eurasia.
In 2015, Georgia May, a rescued dog, walked 35 miles (56 km) back home after getting lost during a hiking trip in San Diego, California.
(Illustration: National Geographic).
Laser, a rabbit-hunting dog, returned to his neighborhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2010, six weeks after getting lost during a fireworks display 50 miles (80 km) away from his family.
Back in 1924, Bobbie, a collie mix, also found his way home to Silverton, Oregon, after getting lost during a road trip. The dog traveled 2,800 miles (4,506 km) from Indiana over six months, navigating through several mountain ranges.
How do dogs achieve such “extraordinary” feats? Experts say it is due to their instinct to find their way home and their keen senses.
“Mental Maps”
According to National Geographic, dogs’ ability to find their way home may be inherited from their ancestors – the gray wolves. These wolves roamed vast territories across Eurasia, where dogs were first domesticated.
Like humans, “dogs seem to be able to build a mental map [understood as a visual representation in their minds] of their environment” – Zazie Todd, author of “Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog,” explains.
“The ‘mental map’ that dogs have about their environment may be somewhat different from ours, as it could be influenced by scent.”
Tracking or following scent trails is how dogs navigate their surroundings. Dogs have a sense of smell that is 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than ours, allowing them to detect everything from explosives to COVID-19 or diabetes.
Dogs can also recognize familiar locations through sight, smell, and sound.
Bridget Schoville, Senior Director of Animal Behavior Science at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), notes that some dogs can orient themselves by recognizing the relative position of a familiar landmark to their home and their current location in relation to that landmark.
“From those reference points, they can follow a fairly direct path home.”
Adjusting the “Biological Compass”
Some migratory birds, salmon, and whales are among a few species capable of “detecting” the Earth’s magnetic field. Dogs may also possess this elusive ability.
In a study published in 2020, researchers in the Czech Republic “recruited” 27 hunting dogs for a three-year experiment.
In over 600 field trials, scientists equipped the dogs with global positioning system (GPS) trackers and cameras before releasing them into an unfamiliar forest.
They then tracked the dogs as their owners called them back home. All the dogs in the study ran an average of nearly one mile (1.6 km) into the forest.
More than half (60%) of the dogs in the study used their sense of smell to retrace their steps and find their way back to the trainer.
However, 30% of the other dogs “did it differently”: They used a “scouting strategy” – running along a new route starting with a short distance north-south through the forest, regardless of where their trainer was.
Lacking any familiar visual cues, the dogs in the study could navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field.
(Illustration: National Geographic).
The researchers referred to this “strategy” as “running by compass.” This way, the dogs found their owners much faster than those who only followed their owner’s scent. The authors concluded that dogs could combine their “mental map” with the magnetic field for orientation when lost.
“We have not yet found compelling evidence that dogs use magnetic field signals to navigate, but this is the most plausible explanation” – co-author of the study Hynek Burda, Emeritus Professor of Zoology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, stated.
Dogs can also combine these sensory methods. Although scent tracking is slower than scouting, in some cases, it may be safer.
“Bonding with Humans”
Burda explains that dogs can switch between different “strategies,” but generally, “most dogs do not have the ability to learn and accumulate experiences to find their way home from distant and unfamiliar places.”
As modern dog breeds have been developed to be close to their owners, astonishing journeys like those mentioned above are becoming less common.
Monique Udell, Director of the Human-Animal Interaction Lab at Oregon State University, states: “Dogs raised alongside humans can form bonds with people similar to the attachment relationship between parents and children.”
“A crucial aspect of this bond is the strong motivation to reunite when separated.”
Todd adds: “When dogs go missing, it is a terrifying experience for them, so it is essential to keep your dog from wandering off in the first place.”
You can microchip or put a collar with your phone number on your dog. “This is the most helpful thing we can do to ensure that the dog does not have to find its way home” – Todd advises.
