How Do Dogs Manage To Get Home?

There are many stories of lost dogs who managed to return home after a few days. For us it is surprising, but there are more and more cases and this leads us to think that for them it is normal. 

To find out the answer to an unknown that intrigues many, the University of Vancouver has conducted some studies and obtained an answer. Would you like to meet her?

How do dogs manage to get home?

According to studies carried out by the University of Vancouver (Canada), dogs are able to return home because they are able to smell the smell of their owners. They do it in two ways: through the sense of smell, and we already knew this, but the other will surprise you!

For a dog, its owner is the leader of the pack, so it is able to smell it from meters away. It must be remembered that a dog does not know where he is or where to go, his sense of direction is practically nil. For this reason, the first sense that guides him is the sense of smell.

The sense of smell of dogs is exceptional, in fact they are able to recognize the smell they are looking for in an environment full of different aromas and can follow it until they find it.

The sense of smell of dogs

To understand how a dog manages to get home thanks to the sense of smell, we need to understand how it works.

A dog’s nose has two independent and separate channels: one for breathing and the other for sniffing. Thanks to them, no matter how many smells there may be in the place where they are, they are able to isolate all those they do not need and find what they are looking for.

A human being has an average of five million olfactory receptors, while dogs have hundreds of millions. The part of the brain of dogs that picks up these smells is much more developed in these animals than in people, being able to capture and memorize them and thus being able to find the smell in any place.

In addition to that, with their sense of smell, they can recognize not only people and other animals they already know, but also know how they feel or what emotions they feel. This is why the famous phrase “dogs smell fear”.

While this sounds surprising, there is another reason dogs are able to return home and we are sure it will move you.

One more reason …

The other reason they are able to return home is the loyalty they have towards their master. Their master, their home and their territory are the life of dogs and, moved by this, they are able to return even when there is no characteristic smell to guide them.

For them, it is more than going home, it means reuniting with the being they love most in the world and for whom they would give their life.

Who doesn’t remember Hachiko? The loyal dog who returned day after day for 7 years to the place where he always went to pick up his master. One day, his master did not return, because he had died of a heart attack. Hachiko could have gotten sad for a few hours in the house and then be happy with a new family that would have welcomed and looked after him.

However, his loyalty went further. He didn’t care about the cold or the heat or even the time he spent there. He did not understand why his master did not return, but Hachiko died in that train station waiting for years for his master, the being he loved most in the world.