Interesting Dog FAQs

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  Interesting Dog Facts

1. The Labrador Retriever has been on the AKC’s top 10 most popular breeds list for 25  consecutive years—longer than any other breed.
2. A  dog’s nose print is unique, much like a person’s fingerprint.
3. Forty-five percent of U.S. dogs sleep in  their owner’s bed.
4. Speaking of sleeping … all  dogs dream, but puppies and senior dogs dream more frequently than adult dogs.
5. Seventy percent of people sign their dog’s name on their holiday cards.
6. Rin Tin Tin, the famous German      Shepherd, was nominated for an Academy Award.
7. The shape of a dog’s face suggests its longevity: A long face means a longer life.
8. Dog eyes have a part called the tapetum lucidum, allowing night      vision.
9. The name Collie means “black.” (Collies once tended black-faced sheep.)
10. Yawning is contagious—even for dogs. Research shows that the sound of a human yawn can trigger one from your dog. And it’s four times as likely to happen when it’s the yawn of a person he knows.
11. The Dandie Dinmont Terrier is the only breed named for a fictional person—a character in the novel Guy Mannering,  by Sir Walter Scott.
12. Dogs curl up in a ball when sleeping to protect their organs—a holdover from their days in the wild, when they were vulnerable to predator attacks.
13. The Basenji is not technically “barkless,” as many people think. They can yodel.
14. The Australian Shepherd is not actually from Australia—they are an American breed.
15. The Labrador Retriever is originally from Newfoundland.
16. Human blood pressure goes down when petting a dog. And so does the dog’s.
17. There are over 75 million pet dogs in the U.S.—more than in any other country.
18. A  person who hunts with a Beagle is      known as a “Beagler.”
19. Dogs are not colorblind. They also see blue and yellow.
20. Dalmatians are born completely white, and develop their spots as they get older.
21. Dogs  have about 1,700 taste buds. (We humans have between 2,000–10,000.)
22. When dogs kick backward after they go to the bathroom it’s not to cover it up, but to mark their territory, using the scent glands in      their feet.
23. A recent study shows that dogs are among a small group of animals who show voluntary unselfish      kindness towards others without any reward. This is one fact dog lovers have known all along.

24. There are more than 150 dog breeds, divided into 8 classes: sporting, hound, working, terrier, toy, non-sporting, herding, and miscellaneous.

25. According to a recent survey, the most popular name for a dog is Max. Other popular names include Molly, Sam, Zach, and Maggie.

26. Dogs can vary in size from a 36 inch (150+ lb.) Great Dane to a 2 lb. Chihuahua.

27. Puppies and kittens can be adopted as early as 8 weeks of age.  Until then, they should stay with their moms and littermates.

28. About 1/3 of the dogs that are surrendered to animal shelters are purebred dogs.

29.  Contrary to popular belief, dogs do not sweat by salivating. They sweat through the pads of their feet.

30. The term “dog days” has nothing to do with dogs. It dates to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July 3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures.

31. Did you know they were female?  Toto’s role in The Wizard of Oz was played by a female Cairn Terrier named Terry, and the Taco Bell dog is a female Chihuahua named Gidget.

32. Former US President Teddy Roosevelt had a Pit Bull named Pete.

33. An adult dog has 42 teeth.

34. If a dog isn’t spayed or neutered, a female dog, her mate and their offspring can product 67,000 dogs in 6 years.

35. The most successful mountain rescue dog ever was a St Bernard named Barry, who lived during the early 1800’s and saved 40 lives.

36.  It was recently discovered that dogs do see in color, just not as vivid as we see.

37. Nearly all but two breeds of dogs have pink tongues: The Chow Chow and the Shar-pei both have black tongues.

38. The Poodle haircut was originally meant to improve the dog’s swimming abilities as a retriever, with the pom-poms left in place to warm their joints.

39. The top five favorite breeds of dogs in the US are: Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, German Shepherd, Beagle, and Dachshund.

40. Greyhounds can reach a speed of up to 45 miles per hour.

41. When a puppy is born, he is blind, deaf, and toothless.

42. All dogs, regardless of breed, are direct descendants of wolves and technically of the same species.

43.  A dog’s whiskers — found on the muzzle, above the eyes and below the jaws — are technically known as vibrissae. They are touch-sensitive hairs than sense minute changes in airflow.

44. Dogs can locate the source of a sound in 6/100ths of a second by using their swiveling ears like radar dishes.

45. A dog’s sense of smell is far greater than a human’s. Dogs noses can smell 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human. Beagles, German Shepherds and Dachshunds are four breeds with the best sense of smell.

46. Dogs detect certain odors in parts per trillion. To put it into perspective, in her book Inside of a Dog, researcher Alexandra Horowitz says that dogs can detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water. That’s the size of two Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

47. A dog’s nose helps regulate body temperature. Since canines don’t have sweat glands like humans, they secrete sweat from the pads on their feet and through a thick layer of mucous on their noses. This mucous also helps absorb scent chemicals, helping dogs identify certain smells. 

48. Dogs sniff on a continuous basis. Instead of exhaling through their nostrils, dogs have slits on the side of their noses to push out air that comes in. That means they can keep sniffing in one continuous motion.

49. A dog’s nose has an amazing number of sensory cells. Humans possess about 6 million olfactory receptors that send scent signals to our brains. But a dog’s nose can have up to 300 million olfactory receptors.