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Dogs align themselves with the Earth’s north-south axis when going to the bathroom, scientists have discovered. Even the smallest change in Earth’s magnetic field can influence their position.

Researchers from Czech and Germany studied around 70 dogs during 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations in the duration of two years and found that when dogs preferred to excrete only when their body was in alignment with the north-south axis under calm magnetic field condition.

They also noticed that when the alignment was unstable, like during a solar flare, dogs would become confused.

The reasons of why they preferred planet’s north-south axis is still a matter of research.

“It is still enigmatic why the dogs do align at all, whether they do it ‘consciously’ … or whether its reception is controlled on the vegetative level (they ‘feel better/more comfortable or worse/less comfortable’ in a certain direction),” the researchers wrote.

“Our analysis of the raw data … indicates that dogs not only prefer N-S direction, but at the same time they also avoid E-W direction,” they added.

The study is the first to find out that dogs are sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field.

However, it is no just dogs that are sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field. Cattles also align themselves on the north-south axis to graze. Salmon used their sense of the Earth’s magnetism to find way back to spawning grounds where they were born.

The developments of the story is published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology.