Think you know everything there is to know about your canine best friend? See how many you can check off this list!
- Dogs make different sounds to communicate with humans (you!) and other canines. There are generally six types of sounds, including barking, baying, growlong, howling, whimpering, and whining. Your pup barks for various reasons: they may be bored (repetitive and monotonous), suffering from separation anxiety (repetitive and high-pitchee), alerting you (sharp and staccato), or demanding something from you (sharp and persistent), according to a 2019 article by Pat Miller for Whole Dog Journal.
- Dogs also use their tails to communicate their emotions – from agitation to happiness. It’s impawtant to note that a wagging tail doesn’t always mean that a pooch is friendly or wants to be petted. A 2007 study found that dogs will wag their tails to the right side when feeling happy or confident, and to the left side when feeling scared or uncertain, according to Animal Planet’s website.
- Your pup has a sense of time. Does your fur-legged friend always seem to know when it’s time for dinner or when you’re about to come home from work? Scientists think that dogs may be using their circadian rhythm or social cues in their daily life to keep track of time. There’s also a theory that they’re able to “smell” time, using the strength of a particular scent to figure out how long ago something is about to happen, according to an article by Matt Soniak for Pet MD.
- Your dog has more teeth than you do. Barring any extractions, your adult canine companions has 42 permanent teeth (10 more than 32 pearly whites in your mouth). And back when your best friend was still a smol pupper, they had 28 baby teeth (human infants have 20), based on a 2017 article by Dr. Ernie Ward for Pet Health Network.
- Sorry. Your pooch wasn’t really sorry when they destroyed your favorite shoes. But what about their facial expression and body language that screamed “guilty” while you were scolding them? They were simply responding to your behavior and attempting to appease you – the cowering posture, whale eyee, and flattened ears are all signs of stress, reported Anna Burke in a 2018 article fot American Kennel Club.
- Your furry bff may smell and hear better than you. But their sense of taste is less developed. Dogs have roughly 1,700 taste buds, while humans have approximately 9,000. Studies have shown that your pooch can identify sweet, sour, salty, and bitter flavors, as well as have special taste buds specifically for water, based on a 2017 report by Katie Finlay for American Kennel Club.
- You won’t find another nose that’ exactly the same as your pup’s. Just like human fingerprint a dog’s nose is one of a kind, with its own unique pattern of ridges, dots, and creases. In fact, prior to the advent of microchips, the Canadian Kennel Club accepted nose prints as a form of identification for more than 50 years, according to a 2017 article from National Purebred Dog Day’s website.
- Your dogs is as smart as your two-year-old nephew. According to psychologist and canine researcher Stanley Coren, the average canine can learn 165 words, while the “super dogs” can learn 250. Dogs can also count up to four or five and won’t mind tricking you to get treats, according to a 2009 article published in the American Pyschological Association’s website.
- Your pup poops in accordance with earth’s magnetic field. It sounds silly, but a two-year study found that canines prefer to face either north or south while doing their business under calm magnetic field conditions, according to a 2013 article by Vlastimil Hart and team published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology. Who knew?!
- Your dog is not actually color blind. Canines have only two color receptors in their eyes (versus three in humans), so while they can’t really see green and red, they see yellow, blue, and gray just fine. This is why most agility equipment are yellow and blue, as written by Krisitina Lotz in an article for I Heart Dogs. Myth busted!
