There鈥檚 a reason your dog circles before settling on the perfect pooping spot. He鈥檚 likely aligning himself with Earth鈥檚 magnetic field.
that canines have an inner compass that directs them when they鈥檙e eliminating.
鈥淯rinating and defecating dogs tend to align their body along the North-South axis,鈥 the researchers told .
The team watched 70 dogs going about their business 70,000 times before determining that man鈥檚 best friend prefers to face due north or south when pooping. The caveat? They only orient themselves this way when the planet鈥檚 magnetic field is calm, or about 20 percent of the day.
“We found that dogs are magnetosensitive, and they are predictably disturbed by even small changes of the MF (magnetic field),” , a聽zoologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen聽in Germany, told .听
And it鈥檚 not just dogs that have this special sense.听聽tend to graze along the magnetic field, and聽聽by the north-south axis. 聽