Mary Allen
You know a lot about your dog and his fellows. However, these fun facts are less well known. Or did you know that the largest dog in the world was almost 1.12 meters tall? PetReader brings you 15 facts about dogs that you are guaranteed not to know.
Dogs Have Three Eyelids
Have you ever thought that dogs like us have two eyelids? In addition to the two eyelids that can be seen, dogs have a third eyelid – this ensures that the eye remains protected and moist.
Two Dog Breeds Have Black Tongues
Most dog breeds have human-like tongues: light pink. But not so with Chow-Chow and Shar-Pei. These are the only dog breeds with a black tongue. Why this so has not yet been scientifically explained.
Almost Every Third Dalmatian is Deaf in One Ear
15 to 30 percent of all Dalmatians are deaf in one ear. The reason for this is a gene that is also responsible for the piebald coat pattern. About five percent hear nothing with either ear.
Beatles for the Hounds
In a 2013 interview with The Beatle, Paul McCartney revealed that he hid the dog soundtrack on the Sergeant Pepper record. The last song on the album, “A Day In The Life,” has an extremely high-pitched whistle that is not audible to the human ear – but intended for dogs. The sound of the dog was the result of a conversation with one of the sound engineers.
Largest Dog in the World
The largest dog in the world was a Great Dane named Zeus. According to the Guinness Book of Records, his height was 1118 meters. When he stood on his hind legs, Zeus was 2.23! With 70 kilograms and almost endless legs, he really made an impressive figure. Sadly, the recorded dog died in 2014 at the age of five.
Three Dogs Survived the Crash of the Titanic
Many people died in the wreck of a luxury ship at the beginning of the twentieth century. But there were also a few pets on board. Three dogs are said to have survived: two Spitz and a Pekingese. For example, a woman wrapped her Pomeranian puppy in a blanket so everyone would think she was carrying a baby. This is reported by the page “Wetstreet”.
Dogs are About as Smart as 2-Year-Olds Children
According to the American Psychological Association, the average dog can learn up to 250 words and gestures – about the same as children by the age of two.
Dogs Drink with the Tip of Their Tongue
Researchers at Virginia Tech were very slow to play and analyze footage of drinking dogs. Result: Dogs don’t drink the way we previously thought. Because four-legged friends do not just slouch – they move their tongues very accurately and with great speed in order to rake water into their mouths. To do this, they fold their tongue away from their nose underwater. The tremendous speed also creates a small column of water from the bowl to the dog’s mouth.
Dogs are Warmer Than Us
Normal body temperature is between 38 and 39 degrees. At a temperature of about 39.4 degrees Celsius, one speaks of fever in dogs.
Dogs Dream
In a dream, the brain of a person and a dog functions in the same way. Dogs also have so-called REM sleep phases in which they dream just like humans. For example, if you notice that your dog twitches or wiggles his paws while sleeping, it is highly likely that he is dreaming.
Dogs Have 18 Ear Muscles
Hearing in dogs is more pronounced than in humans – this can be seen, among other things, in the example of the Beatles song mentioned above. Unsurprisingly, dogs have twelve more muscles than we do to move their ears. This allows them to rotate and remove listening devices independently of each other in order to perceive sound waves as efficiently as possible.
Dogs Smell 10-100,000 Times Better Than Humans
Plus, when it comes to smell, dogs are way ahead of us. This example helps to illustrate this: among a mountain of socks with two million clean socks, it can find one dirty sock.
Dogs’ sense of smell is so good that they can also detect, for example, drugs, people, or other material objects. You can probably even teach them how to sniff out cancer cells. Because, according to the portal “American Veterinarian”, there are already several cases of dog owners, whose four-legged friends allegedly recognized cancer by breathing or by the skin.
Some experts are already convinced that dogs smell cancer cells, but there is still not enough scientific research to support this.
Dogs Have a Heat Sensor in Their Noses
Dogs can perceive not only smell with their nose, but also temperature. Thanks to it, four-legged friends can distinguish between a warm object in a room and an object warm for mammals, even at a distance.
Dogs Can Be Jealous
Dogs, too, have a basic sense of justice and can be jealous. For example, when some dogs are rewarded for their efforts, while others are not. However, these emotions are more pronounced in dogs and less pronounced than in humans.
Dogs are Sensitive to the Earth’s Magnetic Field
The direction your dog is looking in while going about his business is probably not chosen by chance: dogs prefer to navigate along the north-south axis of the earth’s magnetic field. This is what the study showed. On the whole, it was found that dogs prefer to completely avoid the east-west axis.