Dogs Sense the Earth's Magnetic Field

Where is Senator William Proxmire?

Dog compass....?

... as a side benefit to this ground breaking research, the root cause of the economic problems in the western economies has also been identified.

That problem is clearly... that someone somewhere spent money trying to figure out what side of a tree the local mutt. Rex, prefers to pee on.

Sad...

That explains why my dog constantly spins when I turn on the ceiling fan.

I was wondering why my bathroom seemed to be turned in the wrong direction!

When will the HUMAN trials begin...and will the test subjects be members of Congress or ordinary people? It WILL make a difference.

I don't think this is 'good science' and who provided funding for such an unuseful study? There isn't enough information about the data for the reader to determine if the data was indeed meaningful or was a 'force fit'. You can often 'force fit' random data to appear statistically not random by applying creative filters. Maybe the dogs do not like facing south, looking into the sun, when they pee. Had the author provided more information about 'during periods of calm magnetic field conditions' I wouldn't be making this comment.

I thought the article on the sidebar about dogs recognizing images of other dogs to be much 'better' science although it was stating the obvious. Dogs do not watch TV because it is boring to them. They do take note when a dog is on the screen and mine usually start barking to set up a dialog with the dog in the 'window'. I have also noticed my dogs remember the names of pet dogs in other households. I try to verbally communicate with my dogs beyond simple commands. Such as byebye means a car trip. Byebye (a dog's name) indicates you are going to visit that dog. I communicate that phrase in the house then before we get in the car in the car before we start moving and lastly when the dog starts to go nuts because it has smelled something that confirms the destination. The trick with these conversations is keeping the communication simple, understanding how the dog perceives the world and getting the timing right. I was known a few dogs smart enough to have vocabularies over 100 words.