The three devoted readers of my articles know at least two consistent things about me: I have a proclivity toward unusual scientific studies, and I am one of the foremost amateur scatologists in the world. So when I came across the following link, you can imagine how excited I was: http://news.yahoo.com/magnetic-field-keeps-dogs-in-line-during-bathroom-breaks–study-184949050.html. Seems a bunch of Czech and German scientists have discovered that the ‘poop walk’ dogs do (going around in circles and sniffing the ground for just that right spot to pinch a few doggie loaves) is because they “prefer to excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis under calm magnetic field conditions.” After all these years examining dog doodies you think I would have been the one to figure this out. Yes, I was excited, but I was jealous, too. You see, I have been trying to prove that the dog’s poop walk was the vestige behavior of ancient dog dancing rituals. I was so close, too. Did you know that if you do the Hokey Pokie with a pile of dog crap right behind you, the chances of stepping in it is the exact same as an airplane pilot accidently stepping out for fresh air while flying? Now all I have to show for it are reams of research data and a closet full of poopy shoes.
I have to hand it to those guys, though. They were extremely thorough in their own research. The article says “To test their theory, scientists had 70 dogs, from 37 breeds, observed over a two-year span. The orientation of the dogs during defecation was cataloged 1,893 times and during urination 5,582 times.” You know that took a lot of dedication. I can see one of the scientists coming home in the evening, and his little child tugging on his pants leg until he pays attention to hear the wee one ask “Daddy, what did you do today?” “Well, sweet pea, daddy followed a Great Dane, a Rat Terrier and a Labrador Retriever around today so he could study their whoopsies. I brought one home with me if you’d like to play with it awhile before dinner.” Why, O why did I not have a daddy like that?
I love what the researcher said when asked if they had to coax the dogs to poop: “This is certainly not a confounder in our study because the dogs do not have to fulfill a certain task, but perform everyday routine behavior. The study was truly blind.” I wonder if they worked by sense of smell, considering they were blind. Such brave souls! I hoped they washed their hands often.
See how smart these guys were. I mean, they covered every base (or was it the dogs that covered the bases?). Aware that other scatologists might consider the dog’s alignment with the sun (I myself have pondered that very thing), the scientists preemptively stated “The argument that the dogs might orient with regard to sun position so that they turn with their back to the sun in order to avoid dazzling by sunshine during such a sensitive and vulnerable act as excretion can be questioned. This argument is not plausible for urine marking, which is a brief act.” Wow. Am I impressed, or what?
Well, you know what I did. I went right out and started marking the latitude and longitude of every pooch pile in the neighborhood, and then compared their locations to a map of the Earth’s magnetic lines. In every single instance, the dog poop lined up exactly! Well, once I recovered from the rush of adrenalin over these findings, I went about trying to determine WHY this happens! It didn’t take very long to find out, either. Frankly, I’m shocked those foreign scientists never came to the logical conclusion I discovered. All those brains, and not one of them thought of it. I guess that’s what makes me one of the world’s leading amateur scatologists. I scooped and bagged all 941 dog pile specimens, rolled up my sleeves (it’s no fun having to scrub dog doodie off your sleeves) and set about analyzing every log with the spare spectrometer I have stashed in my garage. Without exception, every sample had tiny little bits of metal in them! So dogs have no choice but to crap on the magnetic line, or face having their poochy rectums shredded as the poop is inevitably drawn to the nearest line.
I’m currently working on my own research paper documenting these exciting – and potentially dangerous (at least to the dogs) – findings. It is certain to make a splash in scatology circles. Dog owners should know not to force their pets to defecate anywhere else but along the magnetic lines, not if they value their dog’s buttholes. Let the dog be drawn naturally to his or her ‘spot’. Do me a favor and take a photo of your dog’s business and upload it to my scat site along with its exact location. I’ll find it using Google maps and then log it in. Or would that be logging it out? Either way, anyone giving a crap will be appreciated.
Now I just need to find out who’s feeding metal to our dogs.
Beans on the Grill 