Global position systems

Automobile makers tout their sophisticated global positioning systems (GPS) in vehicles, but GPS is nothing new in nature. For centuries birds have migrated huge distances, and cats, dogs, horses and other animals somehow find their way home, without depending on computer technology.

Chalk some of it up to sensitive vision, hearing and smell, but also to some mysterious natural forces we barely understand, such as their perception of magnetic fields, reactions to the slant of the sun’s rays and other phenomena.

These senses have delighted pet owners who had given up their pets as hopelessly lost, but whose pets somehow managed to come home again. The flip side: a cruel owner who carries his pet off and abandons it is often dismayed to find the pet back on his doorstep in a few days. (Serves him right!)