Fun Facts About Dogs…

 

With many more people taking the plunge and owning a dog, particularly over the last year or so during the covid-19 pandemic we thought it would be fun to find out 10 fun facts about dogs.  Most of these facts we are about to share with you were totally new to us, some of them are absolutely fascinating and great facts to share with your children too!

 

Show as well as tell when you train…

Dogs find it much easier to learn spoken commands when they are given with hand signals at the same time.  The hand signal helps to reinforce the spoken command and the dog relates the two together.  This is a brilliant fact and just goes to show how intelligent our canine friends are.  Try this out with your dog the next time you are walking with them and doing new training exercises.

 

Clever pups…

Have you ever wondered how clever your pup is?  Well dogs are about as intelligent as a 2 or 3 year old human child.  If you think about all the things a 2 or 3 year old child can do, that’s quite incredible really.  Dogs can understand between 150 and 200 words!

 

Unique identity…

We all know dogs are unique, each has their own personality and characteristics.  However, we found out in our quest for fun facts about dogs that a dog’s nose print is as unique as a human fingerprint!  This means every single dog nose is utterly unique, no two are the same.

 

Anyone for a game of hide and seek?

Puppies love games like hide and seek!  Hide yourself in the house or garden and then call your puppy’s name, see if they can find you!  This must be so much fun and a great game to involve the kids with too.  We reckon older dogs would also enjoy playing a game of hide and seek too, give it a try and let us know how you get on.

 

Good for your health…

This is one of our favourite fun facts about dogs.  Petting a dog can actually lower your blood pressure 🙂  There is a lot of evidence out there now demonstrating the positive effects of owning a dog on human physical and mental health, lowering blood pressure being just one of them.  Regular walks do wonders for both yours and your dogs cardiovascular health as well as mental health.

 

It’s getting hot in here…

Dogs have sweat glands in their paw pads.  Though these sweat glands, which are called merocrine glands dogs are able to sweat, lose body heat and cool themselves down.  You may notice damp or wet paw prints on hot days, where your dog is sweating through their paw pads.  Having these sweat glands located in their paw pads where there is little fur, means the sweat is able to evaporate and the dog can cool down.  As far as fun facts about dogs go, this one is quite scientific and is a great fact, which makes perfect sense when you think about it.

 

A greyhound could beat a cheetah in a long distance race!

Cheetah’s are definitely faster but they can only keep up their 60mph speeds for 200-300 yards before they must rest.  Greyhounds are excellent long distance runners and can run at speeds of 35pmh and keep that up for an incredible 7 miles!  Wow that’s a long distance to keep up that fast pace.

 

Wet noses!

Dogs secrete a special mucous that keeps their nose wet to help them absorb scent chemicals.  When dogs lick their nose they are trying to identify what they can smell!  Our very clever canines are always assessing their surroundings and gathering important information about their environment.

 

Live life to the full…

Dogs have an average life span of between 7 and 18 years with smaller dogs tending to have a longer life span than larger breeds.  What breed of dog do you have and did you consider their expected life span when you decided on a breed?

 

Chew, chew, chew…

And to finish off our fun facts about dogs.  Did you know puppies have 28 bitey things for chewing, while adult dogs have 42 teeth.  That’s a lot of nashers!

 

Fact finding is a great activity to do with your children.  You can find out facts from books, magazines, the internet and by talking to people who know about the subject you are researching.  Once you have found out lots of facts, why not have a go at making up a quiz so you can test each other on how much you have learned!

 

We really hope you have enjoyed reading our fun facts about dogs.  What will your next fact finding mission be?