|
|
|
Dog Facts |
| The now-extinct ancestor of the horse, eohippus, had a short neck, a pug muzzle, and stood no higher than a medium-sized dog. |
| The fastest dog, the Greyhound, can reach speeds of up to 41.7 miles per hour. The breed was known to exist in ancient Egypt as many as 6,000 years ago. |
| Boxers were named after their habit of playing. At the beginning of play with another dog, a Boxer will stand on his hind legs and bat at his opponent, appearing to "box" with his front paws |
| Greyhounds have better eyesight than any other breed of dog. |
| The seeing-eye dog, or any dog trained to guide the blind, canot tell a red light from a green one. When it lead its master across the street, it watches the traffic flow to tell when it is safe to cross. |
| Contrary to popular belief, dogs do not sweat by salivating. They sweat through the pads of their feet. |
| Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man. |
| In Russia, dogs have been trained to sniff out ore deposits that contain iron sulfides |
| The Alaskan Iditarod, an annual 1,149-mile race, commemorates the 1925 "Race for Life" when 20 volunteer mushers relayed medicine from Anchorage to Nome to battle a children's diphtheria epidemic. |
| Sled dogs running in the Ididarod burn an average of 10,000 calories each day. |
| The State Sport of Alaska is dog mushing. |
| Barking Sands Beach on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is known for its unusual sand that squeaks or "barks like a dog." The dry sand grains emit an eerie sound when rubbed with bare feet. |