Interesting Dog Facts

Dogs are so much fun but did you know these things?

There are estimated to be 400,000,000 dogs in the world.

Americans own 68 million dogs.

Dog Breed Specific

• The tallest dogs are the Great Dane and the Irish Wolfhound.
• The world's smallest dog breed is the Chihuahua.
• The St. Bernard is the heaviest.
• The Doberman breed was created in the 1860's by a German tax collector in need of protection named Louis Doberman.
• The Labrador Retriever originated in Newfoundland.
• The Pharaoh Hound has the ability to blush when they're excited.
• The worlds oldest dog was an Australian cattle-dog named Bluey who lived to the age of 29 years and 5 months!
• The Greyhound is the fastest dog on earth and can run 45 miles per hour for short periods of time.
• The oldest known breed is likely the Saluki - originally trained by Egyptians to help them track game.
• The Lhasa Apso was originally bred by monks to guard monasteries in Tibet. Hard of hearing monks would be alerted by the dogs sharp high pitched bark.
• The Bloodhound is the only animal whose evidence is admissible in an American Court.
• The Chow Chow and the Shar-pei both have black tongues.  All other dogs have pink tongues.
• The Basenji is unable to bark.
• The Lundehune has 6 toes and can close its ears.
• The Dalmatian is the only dog that gets gout.
• French poodles did not originate in France but in Germany.
• Dachshunds were bred to fight badgers in their dens.

Dogs and People

• The Akita was first introduced to the United States by Helen Keller, who received one as a gift from a city official during her visit to the Prefecture of Akitas in 1937.
• A German Shepherd guide dog led her blind companion the entire 2100 mile Appalachian Trail.
• Gidget is the name of the Taco Bell dog.
• Bingo is the name of the dog on the side of the Cracker Jack box.
• A police dog can search a car in about three minutes.
• On average, a police service dog retires at the age of seven.
• The US Custom's Labrador named Snag has been dubbed the worlds best dog sniffer after 118 drug seizures worth $810 Million.
• It costs approximately $10,000 to train a federally certified search and rescue dog
• At the end of the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life", an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs, was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.
• Rock star Ozzy Osborne saved his wife Sharon’s Pomeranian from a coyote by tackling and wresting the coyote until it released the dog.

Dogs and History

• The first dog show was held on June 28-29, 1859 in the town hall of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.
• Dogs have been our pets for the past 12,000 years but we’ve had a working relationship with dogs for 80,000 years.
• The Egyptians were the first to have laws to punish humans for being cruel to dogs.
• Tombs from the year 4,000 BC to 3500 BC, are adorned with drawings of dogs resembling the Greyhound and Saluki.
• Dogs are mentioned 14 times in the Bible, but domestic cats are not mentioned at all.
• Bloodhound dogs have a keen sense of smell and have been used since the Middle Ages to track criminals.
• The most dogs ever owned by one person were 5,000 Mastiffs owned by Kubla Khan.
• Many of the Crusaders are represented with their feet on a dog, to show that they followed the standard of the Lord as faithfully as a dog follows the footsteps of his master. The dog is placed at the feet of women to symbolize affection & fidelity.
• Marie Antoinette's dog was a spaniel named Thisbe.
• George Washington had thirty six dogs - all Foxhounds.
• Pete, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Terrier, bit so many people he was exiled from the White House.
• U.S. President Johnson had two Beagles named Him and Her.
• Laddie Boy, U.S. President Warren G. Harding's Airedale, delivered the President's newspaper each day/
• Snuppy, an Afghan Hound, was the first cloned dog.
• 14 ancient breeds of dogs have recently been identified with DNA analysis.  They show the fewest genetic differences from wolves:
  • Afghan Hound - Afghanistan
  • Chow Chow - China
  • Lhasa Apso - Tibet
  • Pekingese - China
  • Shar Pei - China
  • Shit Tzu - Tibet
  • Tibetan Terrier - Tibet
  • Saluki - Egypt
  • Basenji - DR Congo
  • Akita Inu - Japan
  • Shiba Inu - Japan
  • Samoyed - Siberia
  • Siberian Husky - Siberia
  • Alaskan Malamute - United States
• Pekingese were the exclusive property of the Chinese Imperial Court and commoners had to bow to the dogs.
• Siberian Huskies have been used to herd reindeer in Siberia for 3000 years.
• Rin Tin Tin, the first Hollywood dog star, signed all 22 of his contracts with a paw print.
• The calories burned daily by the sled dogs running in the Iditarod race average 10,000. The 1,149-mile race commemorates the 1925 "Race for Life" when 20 volunteer mushers relayed medicine from Anchorage to Nome to battle a children's diphtheria epidemic.
• Three dogs survived the sinking of the Titanic - a Newfoundland, a Pomeranian, and a Pekingese.

Dog Physique

• Does your dog seem to know when to expect your significant other to arrive home from work? That’s because their internal clock is truly amazing. They know when you’re supposed to be home, when it’s time to eat or any of the things that you do on a schedule.
• 'Seizure Alert' dogs can alert their owners up to an hour before the onset of an epileptic seizure.
• Dogs, like people, are either right-handed or left-handed; that is, they favor either their right or left paws.
• Dogs have about 100 different facial expressions, most of them made with the ears.
• The average dog can run about 19 mph.
• Dogs are about as smart as a two- or three-year-old child.
• Dog Ears
  • Eighteen or more muscles can tilt, rotate and raise or lower a dog's ear.
  • A dog can hear sounds 250 yards away but most people cannot hear beyond 25 yards.
  • Using their swiveling ears like radar dishes, experiments have shown that dogs can locate the source of a sound in 1/600ths of a second.
  • Dogs detect sounds as low as the 16 to 20 Hz frequency range (compared to 20 to 70 Hz for humans) and as high as 70,000 to 100,000 Hz (compared to 20,000 Hz for humans).
• Nose
  • A dog’s nose is not just used for smelling, but also to keep him cool. That’s why a dog pants. The longer the dog’s nose, the better his cooling system works.
  • A dog’s nose has over 200 million scent receptors (we have only 5 million) so it's important that their food smells good and tastes good. Sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.
  • Dogs have a wet nose to collect more of the tiny droplets of smelling chemicals in the air.
  • Nose prints are used to identify dogs, just like humans use fingerprints.
• Anatomy
  • Dogs take between 10 and 30 breaths every minute.
  • Dogs have 28 deciduous teeth (temporary) and 42 permanent teeth.  Deciduous or "milk" teeth begin to appear when a puppy is about four weeks of age, and are lost gradually between 14 and 30 weeks of age.
  • All dogs have identical anatomy with 321 bones and 42 permanent teeth.
  • The average body temperature of a dog is 101.2 degrees
  • A dog's heartbeat is 70-120 times per minute.
  • A dog's whiskers are touch-sensitive hairs called vibrissae. They are found on the muzzle, above the eyes and below the jaws, and can actually sense tiny changes in airflow.
  • Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
  • A dog’s shoulder blades are unattached to the rest of the skeleton to allow greater flexibility for running.
  • Dogs' only sweat glands are between their paw pads.
  • Dogs have three eyelids. The third lid, called a nictitating membrane or “haw,” keeps the eye lubricated and protected.
  • The lenses of dogs' eyes are flatter than humans' meaning that they cannot see as much detail as we do, however their eyes are more sensitive to light and motion than our eyes.
• Puppies
  • A dog's pregnancy is 60 Days.
  • A puppy is born blind, deaf, and toothless.
  • Puppies eyes open about 13 to 15 days after birth.
  • Dalmatian puppies are born completely white and get their spots later.
  • Like human babies, Chihuahuas are born with a soft spot in their skull which closes with age.
  • The average number of puppies in litters is between four and six.
  • Puppies are sometimes rejected by their mother if they are born by cesarean and cleaned up before being given back to her.

Official State Dogs

• Alaska: Alaskan Malamute - State Dog 2010
• Louisiana: Louisiana Catahoula Leopard - Official State dog 1979
• Maryland: Chesapeake Bay Retriever - State dog 1964 
• Massachusetts: Boston Terrier - Dog or dog emblem 1979
• New Hampshire: Chinook - Official state dog 2009
• North Carolina: Plott Hound - Official dog 1989
• Pennsylvania: Great Dane - Official dog 1965
• South Carolina: Boykin Spaniel - Official dog 1985
• Texas: Blue Lacy - Official State dog breed 2005
• Virginia: American Foxhound - Official dog 1966
• Wisconsin: American Water Spaniel - State dog 1985
• Kansas: Cairn Terrier - (state dog, not yet official)

Hope you discovered something about dogs that you didn't know before!

This article was written by Doreen Simpson. Visit www.dbdogshop.com for more "Good Ideas for Good Dogs."

Reproduction in any form is not allowed without the express written permission of the author.
Copyright October 2008 by DBDogShop.com