I’ve told my friend Jeff time and again to stop sending me his cute little “thought-you-might-like-this” internet items. I tell him I never, ever read them. But he keeps sending them. And, damn it, I keep reading them.
A few days into this new year, Jeff forwarded to me an NPR item by Mark Memmot: “Everyone Poops, But Dogs Do It With Magnetism” — along with accompanying photo (right). The piece talks about that familiar pre-toilet seek-and-smell behavior
we all know and love in our dogs: “Fido sniffs the ground and maybe turns around a few times. He searches. ‘No, not that patch,’ he seems to say. ‘Maybe this one. Or over here. Umm, maybe not.’ “
Apparently there’s an explanation for this peculiar-seeming routine, Memmot tells us. Researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague reported that after watching 70 dogs for two years — 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations — the dogs seemed to prefer to do their #2’s “aligned along the North-South axis under calm magnetic field conditions.” (So this is what people in Prague do for kicks. No wonder it’s become the go-to European destination for partying!)
And when the magnetic field is in flux? The behavior was abolished, which, those fun-loving Czech researchers suggest, might be why your dog just can’t seem to settle on a place to go.
I have, of course, observed this behavior in Ricky. The bad news is that lately, more often than not, he seems to be finding the North-South axis inside the house rather than out on his walk. The good news is that he seems to have lost his taste for eating what he produces.
LOOK FOR A NEW BEAGLE MAN POST EVERY THURSDAY. OR PRETTY CLOSE TO THURSDAY. COULD BE WEDNESDAY. OR FRIDAY. LET’S NOT GET TOO OBSESSIVE HERE . . . 
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