Dexter the Dog’s Incredible Journey: How a Pooch Tracked His Way Home

Continue reading...

Doorbell cameras are a convenient way to monitor your front door whether you’re at home or away. One Kansas couple was enjoying a Las Vegas vacation when they got a notification that someone was at the door of their home. Imagine their surprise when they saw their precocious pooch, Dexter, ringing the doorbell after hiking home.

After three days at doggy daycare, this fed-up pup just wanted to go home. So he hopped the six-foot fence and hightailed it down the street. Keep reading to find out how Dexter’s canine skills helped him make the two-mile trek home.

Scent Tracking

Dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell. Some estimates put it at as much as 100,000 times better than a human’s. The significant difference is that dogs have between 100-300 million olfactory receptors compared to our six million. Not to mention the part of a dog’s brain that processes scent is 40 times bigger than ours. When humans breathe, we breathe and smell via the same airway. However, when dogs breathe, the path splits into two different airways — one especially for scenting and one just for breathing.

Dogs use this specialized olfactory system to follow a scent trail left by people or other animals. They can also identify odors in the environment and follow them to their source. It has been estimated that, in good conditions, a dog can pick up a familiar scent from as far as 12 miles away, although this is not supported by scientific evidence. According to the video, Dexter was able to follow the winding two-mile trail home in 90 minutes.

Making a Mental Map

In addition to an incredible sense of smell, dogs also have advantages when it comes to sight and hearing. Dogs have a wider field of vision than humans. They can see 240 degrees around them when looking straight ahead, so they have excellent peripheral vision. Humans are limited to 180 degrees. Although dogs are color blind, having more rods than cones means they can see better in low light. A layer of reflective tissue behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum also increases visual acuity in low light.

Our pups also have better hearing than we do. Humans can only hear frequencies as high as 20,000Hz. However, dogs can hear sounds up to 47,000 to 65,000 Hz. They can also hear sounds in negative decibels, which means they are too quiet for human ears. Scientists estimate dogs can hear sounds between -5 dB and -15 dB. Plus, they can hear some sounds from over half a mile away. Dogs associate certain smells, sights, and sounds with specific locations, then they use this information to build a mental map of familiar areas.

Do Dogs Have Some Kind of GPS?

There is evidence dogs use Earth’s magnetic fields for navigation. While 60% of dogs in the study used only scent tracking, 30% also used a technique called scouting. Without any visual cues, the dogs ran along the boundary’s north-south magnetic axis. After this short run, the dogs located their owners much more quickly than dogs who used scent alone. Researchers believe the dogs compare their mental maps against the magnetic field to re-orient themselves when lost. Other studies showing dogs’ sensitivity to magnetism note that they also mark their territory by urinating and defecating along the north-south axis.

It’s unclear exactly what strategies Dexter employed to make his way home. Whether he recognized a familiar walking route or scented his family on the wind, the protective pup had a powerful motivation to find his family. Luckily, caretakers soon arrived to return Dexter to doggy daycare until his family came home from vacation.