No doubt, puppies are adorable. Their cute little steps, their wiggling butts, and their furry fluffiness – they all make our hearts go warm. When you care so much about them, you want to know more about them, right? Well, here are some interesting facts about them:
1. 44% of households in the United States have a dog. That’s around 78 million dogs, according to the American Pet Products Association.
2. The United States is the country with the highest pet dog population in the world, followed by Brazil and China.
3. “Max” remains as the most popular dog name in the US. Other popular names include Bella, Charlie, Lucy, Buddy, Daisy, Cooper, Lola, Jack, and Luna.
4. The top five most popular dog breeds in the US in 2016 are Labrador Retriever, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Bulldog, and Beagle.
5. When puppies are first born, they will sleep for up to 90% of the day until their first few weeks. This gradually decreases until they sleep 18 to 20 hours a day during their rapid growth phase. When they become fully grown dogs, they only need 10 hours of sleep per day.
6. When a baby puppy is born, it is deaf, blind and toothless. When a puppy grows into its childhood stage, it has 28 teeth. When it turns into a full-grown adult, it has 42 teeth.
7. The best age to adopt puppies is 8 to 12 weeks old. Earlier than that, they must stay with their moms and littermates.
8. In their first four to five months, they grow to half their body weight. Then, they would take a year or more to gain the other half of their body weight.
9. Pregnant female dogs carry their puppies for about nine weeks before giving birth.
10. Puppies reach their full size between 12 to 24 months.
11. Smaller dog breeds mature faster than larger ones.
12. A dog’s sense of hearing and smell is much keener and stronger than humans. They can hear sounds from four times the distance the humans can, and their noses are about a million times more sensitive than ours. However, their sense of taste is not sharper than humans. They only have 1,700 taste buds on their tongues, but we have 9,000.
13. Their noses are so powerful that they can even smell disease. Research has found out that dogs have that incredible ability to detect the smell of a range of organic compounds that indicate the human body isn’t working properly. They can detect cancer that is too small to be detected by a doctor and can discover lung cancer by sniffing a person’s breath. If they are acting strange around you, the reason may not be about them, but about you.
14. Dogs can be trained to detect body changes in humans. There are now diabetic alert dogs who signal the human when they pick up that distinct scent that is released when human’s insulin levels drop. There are also seizure alert dogs that can assist patients on an onset of a seizure.
15. Puppies are good for your health! Petting your pup can help lower your blood pressure.
16. While every human has his or her own unique fingerprint, every dog has a unique nose print. The combination of creases and ridges in their noses is so distinct that it can be used to identify them. However, because their noses are always wet, it would be hard for you to take a nose print.
17. Breeds of dogs have pink tongues, except Chow Chow and Shar-pei, who both have black tongues. While still newborn, Chow Chows are born with pink tongues, but it would turn blue-black at eight to ten weeks.
18. Dogs don’t just see in black and white – they can actually see colors! But they only have two cones in their eyes to detect colors, where we have three. So, they can distinguish colors on a blue and yellow scale, but not red and green. On the plus side for them, they have better night vision than us. Actually, they can see best during dawn and dusk.
19. Have you ever felt like your dog understands you? It probably does! Actually, they can be smart as a two-year-old child. Dogs can understand up to 250 words and gestures. The most intelligent canines would be border collies, poodles, golden retrievers, Dobermans, and German shepherds.
20. Allowing your dog to pee on a lamp post could be more dangerous than you think. Dog’s urine can corrode metal because it contains corrosive acids. In Croatia, urinating dogs were to blame for the spate of lamp-post collapse.
21. Dogs also dream in sleep because they have the same brain wave patterns when asleep as we do. This explains why you can sometimes observe them twitching or whimpering in their sleep. But not all dogs dream the same amount. The smaller the dog, the more dreams it has. A small dog like poodle may dream once every ten minutes, while a Great Dane could only dream once an hour.
22. Dogs can get jealous when their owners display affection towards someone or something else.
Having a puppy is a joyful experience. Now that you know them a little bit more, give them some more of your love and attention!
References:
https://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake-and-surrender/pet-statistics
https://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-most-pet-dog-population.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/most-popular-dog-breeds-in-the-u-s-in-2016/
https://www.care.com/c/stories/6094/101-facts-about-dogs-you-might-not-know/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/dog-facts-10-amazing-things-3908754
http://petcommunitycenter.org/puppy-love-facts-and-stats-about-mans-best-friends/
https://www.mspca.org/pet_resources/interesting-facts-about-dogs/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kaelintully/o-yea-o-yea-o-yea-go-dogs-do-your-sweet-thaaang