Skip Navigation

Science Memes @mander.xyz

fossilesque @mander.xyz

1y ago

doggos

58 comments

The article itself is over a decade old and based on questionable data gathering and a faulty analysis processes. If you read the article they published they essentially didn't find anything, determined without providing evidence that other factors couldn't be a determining factor, and then data-dredging when they could find anything statistically significant to match their hypothesis.
SkeptVet article explaining the findings in detail.
Basically it was just shitty science.
- I mean my dog could be an exception but she shits always in the direction we walk. No exceptions.
- I guess you could say the study was dogshit.

Studies like this have me confused.
How do we know they use the magnetic field, and don't just like... Look at the sun, or the shadows it casts.
- You can put magnets near dogs.
  
  There's also this thing called "indoors"
  
  Yes, that should be fine - water is the real danger here.
- Presumably, they'd do the same thing at night.
  But in that case, we'd need to be sure that they aren't using the North Star.
- Dogs still poop when they're inside
- Dogs can poop at night...

"what do you do for work?"
"I watch dogs poop"
- Still more useful than most office jobs.
  
  And less shit to deal with.

So when you're lost, just find a pooping dog to know where the North is. Or the south.
Wait this is useless.
- If you're not in a hurry (and you know which hemisphere you're in) you can make a sun compass to figure out whether the dog pooped north or south. Come to think of it, you can make a sun compass observing a pooping dog first.

I blame the sun. Dogs poop in the morning and evening when owners are not at work. The sun shines from the east and from the west during these hours. And I think they don't like facing the sun.
- My favorite explanation. Occam's razor, ladies and gentlemen.
- Time of day is addressed in the study and
  was not a reliable predictor of expression of alignment
  They also mention that the presence of the sun is possibly likely to affect dogs less than humans - meaning that dogs might have less aversion to facing the sun.
  Study is here: https://frontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-9994-10-80
- This doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t they orient west in the morning and east in the evening?

If the study was re-attempted in-Doors with a mechanism to control the magnetic field, we could be able to verify that dogs are orienting by the magnetic field instead of, say, the position of the sun.
- Or, like, have night mode exist on earth. One of these ideas should work.
  
  New study suggests dogs capable of celestial navigation: "Columbus was a sucker for using an astrolabe when he could have just brought along a good boi and watched him shit"

Don't know about that... I've got 54 dogs and they shit in all directions.
- Your house must fuckin stink mate
  
  I think it's a farm at that point, and yea farms stink.
  
  Not really, only 4b love inside. Those shit outside:)
- Dooddio 54

I’m amazed. I am also amazed that someone was paid to observe dogs defecating in the wild.
- Congratulations! You have now subscribed to #DogPoopPics!
- Someone asked to be paid to observe dogs defecating.

I just got a new puppy and when she poops she starts facing one directing the turns 180 while pooping then scoots over to the side a bit to finish.
Is she broken? Should I do an RMA?
- Might just need to be calibrated, try turning her in a figure eight in front of you a few times before the next poop and see if she aligns.
  
  “Before” is the key word here. Trying to align a puppy during the poop is not recommended.
- Have you tried just restarting it?

Top shitpost
- gdi

Gonna start bringing a compass with me when walking my dogs now...
- Apparently we no longer need compasses. Just bring the dog out to the deck to figure out where we're going.

My 5 year old dog spins when she poos. Picking up her poo requires me to check the area she was in, as there are usually 3-4 spots it landed. But unleashed, she’s fine.The vet tells me this might be harness related. Something about the restraining leash and harness makes her spin.
But now I have a morbid curiosity to see if she starts north or south.
- My dog would walk around while pooping, with a weird gait that involved putting his back paws ahead of his front paws. I once saw another dog do a handstand to poop.
  
  I used to have a dog that would do a handstand to poop. He would find a tree and essentially walk up the tree with his hind legs then poop. People would literally stop in the street to watch him do it. Poop would roll down his back sometimes. It was so weird. Tried to get him to change, but no.
- Does she spin clockwise or counterclockwise, and does it change when you cross the equator? Important questions

This is some real shit

Literally the shittiest compass ever

My pug used to shit right on top of rocks.
- Foxes are pretty notorious about that. You'll be hiking and have a gorgeous view and look down and a rock had a fox turd right on it
- My lagotto has an exquisite sense for art, he loves to place his work on the best possible pedestal. Sometimes it's a rock or something man-made that's sufficiently elevated and stands out, but he also sometimes plants his ass on top of a bush or a small tree.

It's a called dumpass.

They really do want an Ig Nobel Prize.

I would assume it's because pooping is a very vulnerable moment, and they prefer to not face the sun and being blinded while doing so.

58 comments