Mary Allen
How much do you know about our four-legged friends? Here you get 10 different facts.
Man and dog have shared everyday life for thousands of years. Dogs have helped people hunt and guard. Skeletal finds from Germany, among other places, show that there were domestic dogs as early as 12,000 years ago. At the Stone Age settlement Skateholm in southern Sweden, archaeologists have found 7,000-year-old dog graves. They indicate that the animals were already significant and received a fine burial.
A dog’s nose imprint is as unique as a human’s fingerprint.
There were at least 12 dogs on the Titanic. But only three survived when the boat sank. One Pekingese and two Pomeranians. It was the owners who got them in the lifeboats.
The German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin was the first American dog movie star. He signed his own contract with his paw print. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the role of the wolf in the movie The Man From Hell’s River in 1922. Rin Tin Tin also had his own radio show: The Wonder Dog. The German Shepherd also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later, other movie dogs were also named Rin Tin Tin.
A Border Collie named Chaser knows over 1000 words and understands the difference between verbs and nouns.
Dogs, just like humans, have different dialects. Dogs pick up on how to talk to their master and mother. Studies thus show that dogs also have dialects. A survey of British dogs shows that Scottish puppies bark in the same way as the owners speak. Dogs also adjust the pitch to master and mistress. (Read more at spraktidningen.se)
Like humans, dogs can suffer from hospitalization. A sign of stress can be increased blood pressure and American researchers have found that dogs have higher blood pressure when measured at the vet than when measured at home.
Dogs’ color vision is not as developed as in humans and can therefore be said to be partially color blind. Research shows that they can see the difference between yellow and blue, but do not distinguish between red and green. So a red ball on a green lawn becomes almost invisible.
The human sense of smell is simple and primitive in comparison with the dogs. We have about five million olfactory cells, while the dog has 220 million.
The dog Naki’o’s legs and paws froze when he was abandoned as a puppy. He was rescued, given prostheses, and was then able to live a normal dog life.
