Secret Life Of Dogs!
Dogs are man’s best friend, one of the oldest domesticated species on earth, clever, strong and loyal. They are the most popular pet in the world; owned by thirty-three percent of the world’s population.
Secret Life Of Dogs
Here are some interesting facts about dogs, showing us a little bit more about what a dog’s life is like:
- A Bloodhound’s sense of smell is so spot on that it can be admitted as evidence in a court of law. They can follow tracks that are over 300 hours old and can stay on a trail for over 130 miles!
- A Greyhound could potentially beat a Cheetah in a long distance race
- The reason dogs noses are all wet is it helps them to absorb scent chemicals. If their noses are dry this is much more difficult.
- 30% of Dalmatians are deaf in one ear. This is because they don’t have many mature melanocytes (melanin-producing cells) in their inner ears, which is common in dogs with a piebald or albino coat. It has also been discovered that Dalmatians with blue eyes are more likely to be deaf than those with brown, but the reason why is not yet known.
- Walking around in circles to make their sleeping area as comfortable as possible dates back thousands of years to when dogs would make nests in grass. Even though they no longer need to do this, the instinctive trait has passed down each generation.
- Dogs have more than twelve separate muscles that control the movement of their ears.
- Unlike humans who sweat everywhere, dogs only sweat through the pads of their feet.
- When hot, dogs can change their breathing from their usual 30-40 breaths a minute to quickly take 300-400 breaths with very little effort. Try doing this yourself and you’ll probably feel faint.
- The Saluki is the oldest dog breed.
- Stray dogs in Russia have learned how to ride the complex subway system and get off at specific stops in search of food.
- Dogs can be trained to detect cancer and other diseases in humans. Cancerous cells release different metabolic waste products than healthy cells in the human body. Dogs may even be able to sniff out cancer cells simply through smelling someone’s breath.
- If you ever give your dog some human food, make absolutely sure it doe not contain xylitol. Nowadays so many foods are ‘sugar-free’ and xylitol is an increasingly common sugar substitute. It is often in diabetic or sugar-free chewing gum, toothpaste, mouthwash, certain vitamin supplements and in a small handful of peanut butter brands. While safe for people, dogs cannot process it at all and ingestion of even >0.1 gm/kg can cause life-threatening hypoglycemia within 10-15 minutes. Most people know that chocolate is toxic to dogs, but few people know xylitol is estimated to be far far worse and 100 x more toxic. Even in small amounnts, it can be fatal. Many pets have died because their owners didn’t realize. Be careful to always avoid this and read here for more info: www.tinyurl.com/deadlydogsweetener
- Have you ever wondered why your dog curls up in a ball when they sleep? It’s actually an age-old instinct to keep themselves warm and to protect vital organs while they sleep.
- The reason why dogs sometimes take treats or food to another area or room is because they think you are the alpha of the pack and would prefer to eat in private where you won’t attempt to steal their food.
- Licking is a way for a dog to demonstrate they are submissive towards someone who is more dominant than they are.
- Dogs enjoy rolling around in dirt or rubbish because the odour masks their own smell. This was useful in the wild when hunting prey and trying to avoid being hunted themselves.
- Although a dog only has 1,700 taste buds compared to the 9,000 a human has, some of them are sensitive to water. Since dogs are carnivores, it is thought their taste buds may have evolved in this way in order to maintain a balance of internal fluids after eating certain things, such as meat with high salt content. This is an ability that humans don’t possess.
- Dogs are clinically proven to lower blood pressure – all the more reason to love them.
- Dogs can recognize more than 150 words. There’s even a border collie named Chaser who can recognize 1,022 words!
- A dog’s vision is similar to that of a human who is colour blind. It used to be believed that they only saw in black and white, but this has since been proven false. The colours their eyes can process are blue and greenish-yellow and gray. Below are examples of what the world might look like from your dog’s view.
- Even though they see fewer colors than us, they can see a lot better than us at night. Dogs can see in the dark because of the tapetum lucidum, a mirror-like membrane in dogs’ eyes. There are light-and-motion sensitive cells in the retina that are referred to as rods, which can tell the difference between light and shadow.
- Your dog can smell your feelings. When a human is fearful, they perspire, and a dog is easily able to pick up on this change. A Dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 – 100,000 times more acute as that of humans.
What a dog sees vs a human:
Man & His Dog Image from Rover.Com
