Facts about dogs

Facts about dogs

We all think that because we have a dog as a pet, we know all about them; what is more, we even think we can understand the barking of a dog misinterpreting it many times.

The truth is that we don’t know so much about our dogs, and it takes a while to understand our best friends truly.

We may want to know more about certain things, and some of them are listed below. Some fun facts can make us smile, while other facts have a more serious undertone.  

1. A dog can be as smart as a two-year-old baby

Our dogs seem to understand as many words and sounds as a two-year-old toddler. Several studies have proved that a dog’s brain can identify a number of 250 words and gestures.

This fact, of course, may vary depending on the canine breed. Some testimonials make us think a dog can even be smarter than a two-year-old child.

For example, a dog can show a very patient and tolerant behavior, something missing in a two-year-old toddler, who would make a racket if mom didn’t rush to please him immediately.

2. Dogs and cats are different in the way they slurp water

Although both cats and dogs have terrible ways to slurp water, there’s still a little difference between them. Let’s see: according to very detail-oriented studies, a cat doesn’t dip its tongue to drink water, which means they don’t use their tongues as ladles to absorb water.

In fact, as per the results of some studies, the only part of a cat’s tongue that touches the water is the tip, and that tip forms a water column between the tongue itself and the liquid.

It would help if you seriously were more than a simple engineer to get with the spectacular way cats drink water since ultra slow-motion cameras have been utilized to analyze this particular manner of water slurping.

Dogs, on their side, don’t like making things more complicated than they are. The popular belief that dogs and cats slurp water the same way is already debunked.

Dogs use the strength of the interior of their snouts against gravity to catch water.

Dog slurping water

The most sophisticated low-camera videos show how dogs curl, submerge, and raises their tongues to catch sprinkles of water in the air. Cats are apparently more elegant than dogs when drinking water since they don’t even let some water wet their snouts. 

3. Dogs actually have a sense of time

It can be really confusing the belief that dogs have a real sense of time. Recent research showed that dogs have a sense of time because they know when their owners are coming home.

Other experts relate that apparent sense of time to their acute sense of smell.

Also, dogs can identify habitual activities typical of their beloved owners. Simply put, they seemingly learn their owner’s routine; they know when they get up and go for a walk and when it’s time to come back, especially when their owners have been away for a long and their particular human smell has disappeared from home.

Like all animals and humans, dogs also count on a circadian rhythm. 

4. Your dog’s whiskers help him walk in the dark

It’s not that dogs have superpowers, but their whiskers are handy tools for them to get about pretty well in dark places. This is because their whiskers work like sensors that catch any movement and air currents coming to them.

So, in the dark, dogs can also move with the same liberty and flow as if they were walking during the daylight. 

5. Their sweat glands are in their paws

Yes, they don’t have sweat glands spread in their bodies but only in their paws!

Thus we can say that dogs drain sweat through their pads, but they release heat through their mouths.

This is how dogs keep cool, well; not so cool because they have a hard time getting rid of heat in sweltering days and summer seasons.

That’s why it’s normal to see dogs panting in hot areas or on hot days.

Sweat glands in dog's paw

6. Dogs are actually strong

Depending on the breed, a dog can be powerful when exerting pounds of pressure. They are estimated to exert 320 pounds of pressure, which is a bit too much for an animal of this sort. But Bully breeds outstand with the strength of their bite because they come out with 1300 pounds of force, a bite that can easily break bones, even stronger than a shark’s, as a shark’s bite pressure comes in at 600 pounds.

The other strongest dog’s bites belong to the German Shepherd, the Rottweiler, and the American Pitbull Terrier.  

7. A one-year-old dog can be as physically mature as a 15-year-old teen

Can we say a dog reaches its teenage years at 1? It’s possible. No matter the age, it is rather noticeable a dog grows much faster than a human being. Once it reaches a certain age, the canine’s body shows muscles, a better capacity to run, a more far-reaching barking, and a stronger bite.

Also, larger dogs tend to age faster than their smaller peers, but this factor is linked to the dog’s breed. Either way, if you want to go more in-depth about your pup’s age, resort to the different and innovative Dog Age Calculators available on the Internet. 

8. Dogs have an enviable sense of smell

Thanks to their brain and nose’s anatomy, a dog’s sense of smell is practically 1000 times more powerful than a human being’s.

This means that dogs can smell things that are kilometers away.

Of course, the power of a dog’s sense of smell will depend on the breed since there are breeds whose noses contain up to 300 million glands empowering them to smell much better.

Humans only count on 5 million scent glands, and the side of the brain that controls brain smell sensations is not as larger as the dog’s.

It makes sense why dogs are trained for police intercepting forces and in rescue teams for disaster areas. 

Golden retriever smelling

9. Dogs’ sense of hearing beats ours 

When it comes to hearing in the distance, canines are also one upon us. It’s been proven they can hear 4 times more than humans.

Our canine friends are born deaf and blind, but over time, they develop a better sense of hearing, enabling them to detect sounds in a range of 67 to 45,000 Hertz. This super hearing ability decreases as a consequence of the aging process.

An average canine can hear sounds as far as 80 feet away and very low frequencies, which are impossible for humans to distinguish. This may shed light on the dog’s reaction when he feels his owner’s distinctive steps coming home from a still considerably distant place. 

10. A dog can smell diseases and feelings

The dogs’ sense of smell is so acute that they can smell hormones and ‘feelings’.

Feelings are caused by chemical reactions that occur in our bodies. Diseases are caused by certain changes, the intervention of viruses, bacteria, and hormones.

A dog’s nose is equipped with so many scent glands that enable the canine to smell things 80 miles away, let alone the chemical reactions in your insides.

It has been proven that dogs can smell diseases such as cancer, VHI, and others. They can also smell low and high sugar levels, and many people with diabetes have let known their pets’ testimonials, saving their lives following a value level unbalance.  

11. Dogs should be adopted after 8 weeks of age

Dogs should be adopted after a few weeks of age because they are born blind and deaf, plus they need to suck milk from their moms during this period.

When they are born, they cannot see or hear, so it is too risky to adopt one before the first 8 weeks because you might be putting it at the risk of not developing the senses and muscles properly.

Baby dogs

12. Dogs don’t have taste buds

Oddly to say, dogs don’t count on taste buds on their tongues; instead, they detect flavors through the numberless scent glands located on their noses. The flavor reception they receive from the external stimuli will tell them how tasty or horrible the food is. 

Dogs’ facts overview:

  • Dogs are kind, and they feel happy when their owners go back home
  • Dogs are endowed with powerful senses
  • Dogs can deal with darkness thanks to their whiskers
  • Dogs are born blind
  • A puppy needs its mom for 8 weeks until it can get adopted