Fun Dog Facts @ The Puppy Network

• Which dog breed is the most popular in the United States? It depends on whom you ask. Statistics for numbers of dogs registered in 2003, by breed, have recently been released by the American Kennel Club (AKC), which is the largest purebred registry in North America, and the United Kennel Club (UKC) that concentrates on working dogs. And of course, neither one of these registries counts All-American mutts.



• Male dogs do not actually need to lift their leg to urinate. A male dog urinates with one leg up to better mark his territory. This scent can tell another dog many things, including the size of the dog that did the marking. The size is judged by the height of the mark, and dogs like to make themselves seem as big as possible by lifting their leg so they can make a higher mark.



• The expression "three dog night" originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night--so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.



• In the early 1940s, Swiss inventor George de Mestral went on a walk with his dog. When they got home, he saw that his pants and his dog's coat were covered with burrs. Curious as to why burrs would stick to dog hair, he looked at them under a microscope. What he saw was a tiny hook at the end of each burr. This became the basis for his invention of a unique, two-sided fastener-- one side with stiff hooks and the other side with soft loops. The result was Velcro--named for the French words "velour" (a velvety fabric) and "crochet" -- which never would have been invented if he hadn't taken his dog for a walk that day.



• When a dog is barking and you yell at him to be quiet, what he really hears is that you are barking too! Now he thinks everyone in his "pack" is barking, so it must be the right thing to do. A quick way to hush a barking dog is to quietly but firmly give him a command to do something else, such as sit or lie down.



• The original Benji was discovered by animal trainer Frank Inn at the Burbank, California, Animal Shelter, which was about to put the dog to sleep because he hadn't been adopted. Benji's real name was Higgins, and his first acting role was in 1963 in the television series Petticoat Junction. Higgins was 14 years old when he came out of retirement to star in Benji.



• A recent survey by the American Animal Hospital Association found that 86 percent of all pet owners include their pets in holiday celebrations: 97 percent include their pets in Christmas celebrations and 4 percent include them in Hanukkah celebrations.



• When meetings in the Oval Office dragged on too long, president Gerald Ford whistled for his Golden Retriever, Liberty. The feisty dog rushed in and pounced on people, which quickly broke up the meeting.



• According to a survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, about half of all pet owners say that in a life-threatening situation, they would spend any amount of money to save their pet's life.



• Dogs can hear sounds that are too faint for us to hear, and also can hear noises at a much higher frequency than we can. Their hearing is so good that they probably rely more on sound than on sight to navigate their world.



• Most pet owners (94 percent) say their pet makes them smile more than once a day.



• Dogs have far fewer taste buds than people -- probably fewer than 2,000. It is the smell that initially attracts them to a particular food.



• The largest and the smallest dogs to live in the White House where both there during the tenure of president James Buchanan. The president had a Newfoundland named Lara. And his niece, Harriet Lane (who served as White House hostess because the president was unmarried), had a tiny toy terrier named Punch.



• The common belief that dogs are color blind is false. Dogs can see color, but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we see. They distinguish between blue, yellow, and gray, but probably do not see red and green. This is much like our vision at twilight.



• The first living creature to orbit the earth was a dog. Named Laika (which means "barker" in Russian), she blasted off aboard the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. With no way to bring her back to earth, she became the first creature to give her life for the exploration of space.



• 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.



• An estimated 1 million dogs in the United States have been named the primary beneficiary in their owner's will.



• In the first Lassie film, Lassie Come Home (made in 1943), studio prop men got Lassie to lick child star Roddy McDowall's face by putting ice cream on the boy's cheek.



• Small dogs are rapidly gaining popularity, according to American Kennel Club registration statistics. Three toys breeds are among the top 10 in popularity on the most recent list: the Yorkshire Terrier, Chihuahua, and Shih Tzu rank sixth, ninth, and 10th, respectively. A decade ago, no toy breeds were in the top 10.



• Using their swiveling ears like radar dishes, experiments have shown that dogs can locate the source of a sound in 6/100ths of a second.



• The first dog to star in an American movie was Jean the Vitagraph Dog, a Border Collie mix, who made his first film in 1910.



• The first dogs to hunt in packs and the first small companion breeds were probably bred in ancient China. Written records more than 4,000 years old from China show that dog trainers were held in high esteem and that kennel masters raised and looked after large numbers of dog.



• The smallest breed of dog recognized by the American Kennel Club is the Chihuahua, which stands six to nine inches at the top of the shoulders and weighs two to six pounds. The largest is the Irish Wolfhound, which stands 30 to 35 inches at the top of the shoulders and weighs 105 to 125 pounds.



• Seventy percent of people sign their pet's name on greeting cards and 58 percent include their pets in family and holiday portraits, according to a survey done by the American Animal Hospital Association.



• Dogs may not have as many taste buds as we do (they have about 1,700 on their tongues, while we humans have about 9,000), but that doesn't mean they're not discriminating eaters. They have over 200 million scent receptors in their noses (we have only 5 million) so it's important that their food smells good and tastes good.



• Researchers studying what dogs like to eat have found that the appetite of pet dogs is affected by the taste, texture and smell of the food, and also by the owners' food preferences, their perception of their pet, and the physical environment in which the dog is eating.



• The fastest dog, the Greyhound, can reach speeds of up to 41.7 miles per hour. The breed was known to exist in ancient Egypt as many as 6,000 years ago. Greyhounds also have better eyesight than just about any other breed of dog, which is why they are known as sight hounds.



• The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to the ancient Romans, who believed Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July 3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called this period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog."



• A dog's sense of smell is one of the keenest in nature. If a pot of stew is cooking on a stove, a human smells the stew, but a dog smells the beef, carrots, peas, potatoes, spices and all the other individual ingredients.



• Among the many animals that were part of Alexander the Great?s entourage was his dog, Peritas. Alexander was only a boy of 11 when he got Peritas as a puppy. When Peritas died on a pass to India, Alexander named a city after him. His tomb and a statue of the dog were placed at its gate.



• The heaviest and longest dog ever recorded is Aicama Zorba of La-Susa (born September 26, 1981), a Mastiff owned by Chris Eraclides of London, England. In November 1989, Zorba was recorded as weighing 343 pounds, standing 37 inches at the shoulder, and measuring 8 feet, 3 inches long from nose to tail.



• Snag, a Labrador Retriever who works for the U.S. Customs Department, has made 118 drug seizures worth $810 million -- a canine record. He is trained and partnered by Officer Jeff Weitzmann. The greatest number of seizures by dogs is 969 (worth $182 million) in 1988 alone by Rocky and Barco, on patrol in the Rio Grande Valley ("Cocaine Valley") along the Texas border. The pair of drug detection dogs was so proficient that Mexican drug smugglers put out contract for their heads with a $30,000 reward. The dogs hold the rank of honorary Sergeant Major and always wear their stripes when they are on duty.



• Because George Washington bred top hunting dogs he is also the father of the American Foxhound. He crossed several big Stag Hounds that had been given to him by the Marquis de Lafayette with his smaller Black and Tan Virginia Hounds to develop a new breed-the American Foxhound-that had speed, scent, and smarts.