Dogs Know a Lot More Than We Think

Many of us remember the films “The Incredible Journey” and “Lassie Come Home,” featuring pets that found their way home after overcoming incredible odds, proving that dogs know a lot more than we think.

Akumal now has its own heart-warming story of an incredible dog that found its way home after an absence of seven days!  Long-time Akumal Sur resident, Gabriella, was recently involved in a car accident just outside the entrance to Akumal Pueblo.   The car was deemed “totaled” and many people stopped to  help Gabriella exit the car and await the arrival of our Red Cross ambulance.

Gabriella’s traveling companion on this day was her beloved dog Pantera. who leaped through the broken window glass and, with perhaps a bit of panic, crossed the four lanes of the highway to enter the jungle on the Akumal Playa side of the road.  The ambulance rushed Gabriella to hospital and later transferred her to Cancun.  Happy to say her injuries, while quite serious, received excellent attention and care.

However, worry for the missing Pantera remained a huge concern for Gabriella.  Friends and neighbors ralleyed to launch an intensive search for Pantera, patrolling the mangroves as far North as Yal Ku Laguna as well as areas between Akumal Playa and Akumal Sur and the pueblos of Akumal and Cheymuil.

To the amazement of all, Pantera – seven days after the accident – walked into Akumal Sur totally alone – some cuts and scrapes, a little thinner, and the pads of her little feet were totally raw.  Her happiness at being home was so evident as she greeted the caretaker and friends in a triumphant manner.  Needless to say, but I will, this knowledge of Pantera’s return had a marked improvement on Gabriella’s condition, and after her release from the hospital, the greeting between Gabriella and Pantera was memorable and touching with their love for each other.

So, how did Pantera find her way home?  It remains a mystery to scientists, but the easy answer is because that is where the love is.  Scientists say the homing instinct is of two types: the first is that pets find their way home using something other than the usual five senses–a sixth sense.  Animals have the ability to make a sort of “map” in their minds of landmarks, scents, sounds, and familiar territory.  It’s believed that pets are sensitive to earth’s magnetic fields and this gives them the  ability to know which direction they are going by using an inner compass.  Question still remains: how do they know which way to go?  No one knows, but researchers do know if magnets are attached to a dog or cat, the homing ability is taken away.

The second homing instinct is called PSI trailing–the pet strikes out because of LOVE of the owner.  Is it psychic?  Again, no one knows.  Some researchers say pets develop a special bond with their human, and it runs so deep they feel a rhythym.  When the rhythym is thrown out of balance by distance, the imbalance helps the pet to home in on where home is.  This strategy is known as taxon navigation, the ability to directly sense the place you want to be.  Fundamental to taxon navigating is memory.  The pet has to remember the place it wants to be.

The most logical and easiest answer for a dog finding its way home when it has wandered out of its own immediate range is to return by following their own scent trail.  Their scent range is extended by moving among overlapping circles of familiar scents–perhaps the scent of a familiar dog in the next circle.  This might point it to a circle that contains a familiar person or tree or restaurant trash can and so on.

So, did Pantera use her sixth sense and the magnetic field, her love for Gabriella, or her own scent trail?  This we don’t know, as nailing down the exact science is tricky.  But what we can say is that Pantera’s exceptional feat of navigation was welcomed by all the friends and neightbors who worked together in the search, and that Gabriella, now fully recovered from her injuries, is happiest of them all!