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Caissie Canine Instruction: How Do Dogs Know When They’re Close to Home?


We begin this week’s “RUFF TAILS” featuring a beautiful 10.5-week-old Standard Goldendoodle named Forrest ll.

 

Forrest is a very confident, very focused, super intelligent boy. He thinks before he makes a move, any move, except running! He loves to run, run, run run!

 

He’s a typical dog when it comes to chewing sticks, eating every plant, pulling on every branch and grasses, but that’s what exploration is all about.

 


 

He has taken to the car quickly and already mastered the crate in the car, and next will be the ramp. It’s good for him to learn to use the ramp since you never know when that will come in handy.

 

We have many adventures in store for our dear Forrest. He comes to us after we sadly lost our last dog at the age of 3.5 years-old, due to a brain tumour 7 months ago. This puppy is brightening our days, and we are soooo happy to have him in our live and embrace a new happier chapter.

 

 

Welcome to Doggie Dialogue

 

Whether your dog is coming home after a walk, or a car ride, or has been lost, dogs have amazing way of knowing when they are close to home.

 

We all know dogs have a wonderful sense of smell and most dogs rely on “scent cues” such as a particular fertilizer, garden, and even a food manufacturing facility in the area.

 

A study as shown most dogs have incredible homing strategies especially when lost. Dogs will use a technique called “tracking” by following the outbound route or will find a new route by “scouting”.

 

Your dog’s scouting track is closely aligned with the north-south geomagnetic axis, even if they were not following the north-south direction to get home at first.



The scouting technique seems to be a true navigation technique for finding a new way, one that allows dogs to take shortcuts.


This study also considered the effect of dogs using environmental cues to navigate their way home. This can also be referred to as “visual piloting”.

 

A dog’s sense of smell is powerful enough to detect one part per trillion, which would be a single drop of liquid in twenty Olympic-size swimming pools.


Even when your dog is in the car, with windows rolled up, they can “smell” their neighbourhood. In fact, each street corner smells different to your dog.



Please feel free to reach out to Paul if you would like to take tracking or scent detection training.


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