Fun Dog Facts from America’s Family Pet Expo
Posted On: 07-12-2013
Animals are such fun and amazing creatures. They are our pets and we love them, and therefore know a lot about them, but there are a lot of things we don’t know either! So we at America’s Family Pet Expo thought it would be a good idea to compile some fun facts about pets, specifically dogs, that you might not be aware of.
- Oddly enough, French poodles did not originate in France but in Germany.
- Dogs actually have three eyelids. The third lid, called a nictitating membrane, is located in the inner corner of the eye under the lower lid when the eye is open and keeps the eye lubricated and protected.
- The term “dog days of summer” came from the ancient Greeks and Romans because the hottest days of summer coincided with the rising of the Dog Star, Sirius.
- Two dogs employed by US Customs, ‘Rocky’ and ‘Barco’, were so good at detecting smuggled drugs along the US Border that Mexican drug barons put a $30,000 bounty on their heads.
- A dog most likely reads a smiling person as baring their teeth, an act of aggression.
- According to one source, one female dog and her female children could produce 4,372 puppies in seven years.
- During the Middle Ages, Great Danes and Mastiffs were actually suited with armor and spiked collars at times to enter a battle or to defend supply caravans.
- It is said that Alexander the Great founded and named the city Peritas in memory of his dog.
- In the ancient Far East, Pekingese and Japanese Chins were thought of as very important. They had their own servants and were carried around trade routes as gifts for kings and emperors.
- According to one source, a person standing still 300 yards away is nearly invisible to a dog. But a dog can easily identify its owner standing a mile away if the owner is waving his arms.
- Ever wonder why male dogs will raise their legs while urinating? It is to aim higher on a tree or lamppost in order to leave the message that they are tall and threatening. In Africa, some wild dogs even try to run up tree trunks while they are urinating to appear much larger.
- Scientists discovered that lampposts in Croatia were falling down because a chemical in the urine of male dogs was rotting the metal.
- Kubla Khan is known as the single person to ever own the most dogs – 5,000 Mastiffs.