Dog Facts

Dog Facts:

The dog, as we know it; has many ideals to us as a friend and constant companion. Yet when we see its close cousin the wolf, we stare, aware of its beauty and sense of community to its pack.

Dogs have been with man for a long time, and some dog facts state this and why the dog had reason to bond with mans way of life.

In the knowledge that man has taken the dog into his world as a friend, a worker, a guard dog. Being such a versatile species, and dogs plus wolves are pack animals, so being part of a family of man. Is not different to being part of a family of a pack of dogs or wolves.

When you see a pack of dogs or wolves, there always has to be a leader, and this is also what the dog looks in man, to follow man and do his bidding. Just as a member of a pack would do. To work together, doesn't this shine thought, with these dog facts that this is evident.

Dog facts have shown that they are truly pack animals, and what of their actions are with man, is no different in their own

Dog facts have shown that dogs bonded with early man, in the days of the stone age, yet scientists don't really know if it was man who brought the dog into their lives, or that dogs decided that they would join mans world.

Maybe we will never know, it may have been the smell of food and a comfy warm fire at night that the dog found a good friend in man and what he could supply and give the dog, and in return, the dog acted no different to man as an extended member of a pack.

We stare in ore at these beautiful beasts running along in the wilderness. Yet we never quite know the secrets that is harbors, and its cousin that stands by us. Lets have a look at some of these all-inspiring facts about the dog-wolf.

• All dogs are probably descended from an animal called Tomarctus.
  This animal lived approximately 15 million years ago.

• Stone-aged people tamed dogs to help them track game. About eight thousand years ago, ancient Egyptians raised Saluki hunting dogs. Saluki is an arabic word meaning noble one. These dogs are probably the oldest known breed.

• Argos or Argus, Ulysses' hunting dog, was the only creature to recognize the Greek hero when he returned home disguised as a beggar after 20 years of adventure.

• Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greek mythology, guarded the gates to the underworld.

• Laika became the world's first space traveler. Russian scientists sent the small animal aloft in an artificial earth satellite in 1957.

• The basenji, an African wolf dog, is the only dog that cannot bark.

• Irish Wolfhounds rank as the largest dog, and Chihuahuas as the smallest dog. The St. Bernard is the heaviest dog and other breeds range in size between these extremes.

• A dog can hear sounds 250 yards away that most people cannot hear beyond 25 yards. The human ear can detect sound waves vibrating at frequencies up to 20,000 times a second. But dogs can hear sound waves that vibrate at frequencies of more than 30,000 times a second.

• A dog's heart beats between 70 and 120 times a minute, compared with a human heart which beats 70 to 80 times a minute.

• A female carries her young about 60 days before the puppies are born.

• Classifying dogs into categories began with the Romans.

• The Dog linage began 37 million years ago .

• The wolf is the largest in the wild canine family.

• The coyote evolved separately from the wolf over 500,000 years ago.

• The wolf has 42 teeth.

• The wolf has extremely powerful jaws capable of generating 1,500 psi pressure.

• The wolf has one of the widest ranges of size, shape and color of any mammal in North America.

• Litter size for the wolf depends on nutrition factors as well as fitness of the female.

• Wolves have a vast communication repertoire including scent marks, vocalizations, visual displays, facial and body postures and rituals.

• Wolves communicate with each other more by harmony and integration rather than by aggression and submission.

• Wolves are territorial and defend their territory through vocalizations and scent marking.

• If necessary, wolves will attack other wolf intruders to protect their territory.

• In North America there are 10 recognized sub-species of the wolf.

• The main threat to wolf populations is loss of habitat.

• Predation is not violence, it is the act of obtaining food for survival.

• The wolf is an ultimate predator at the top of the food chain.

• The wolf primarily travels at a 5 mile per hour trot.

• In chases, the wolf can achieve estimated speeds of between 28 and 40 miles per hour for up to 20 minutes.

• The wolf uses facial display in ritual aggression, dominance, submission or fear.

• The wolf has 2 types of hair, "Guards and "Undercoat".

• The hair of the wolf is shed in the spring and summer and sheds out in sheets unlike most dogs.

• The wolf's sense of smell is more than 100 times greater than a human.

• The hierarchy in a wolf pack neutralizes aggression, reduces conflict and promotes social order.

• There are two hierarchies in a wolf pack, one for females and one for males.

• Change of rank in a wolf pack is more frequent in lower rank positions.

• Wolf pups, while low in hierarchy, have many privileges and social freedom.

• In the winter, the wolf's tail helps keep the face warm .

• Wolves are often confused with Indian dogs, huskies, malemutes and German Shepherd Dogs .

• Arctic tundra, taiga, plains or steppes, savannahs, hardwood, softwood and mixed forest were all originally inhabited by the wolf.

• Adult male wolves average ninety-five to one hundred pounds and females about fifteen pounds less.

• Wolves howl to greet one another, to indicate their location, to define their territorial boundaries, and to call the pack together .

• Wolves can trot at five to ten miles per hour almost indefinitely.

• A wolf may spend as much as a third of its time on the move  .

• The wolf is generally a docile animal with a strong aversion to fighting.

• A wolf's front feet are larger than their back feet.

• Packs hunt in territories of up to 600 square miles.

• A pack's home range will sometimes overlap the territory of another pack.

• In addition to howling, wolves bark, yap, whine, and growl.

• Litters of up to 14 pups are born in April through June.

• Pups emerge from the den at about one month of age.

•  All members of a wolf pack take part in caring for the young.

•  When pack members return from the hunt and they are nipped on the snout by the pups, the hunters regurgitate undigested meat for them.

• Wolves are considered to be competitors with people for game animals such as moose and caribou.

• Although wolves are feared throughout much of the world, documented attacks on people are extremely rare.

• Attempts to keep wolves as pets are not usually successful.

• Wolves use direct scenting, chance encounter, and tracking to locate prey.

• In scenting an animal, wolves must usually be downwind of the prey.

• Wolves are active at all times of the day in winter.

•  Where waterways are plentiful, wolves often travel on the windswept and hard packed ice in winter.

• Wolves actually have a low hunting success rate.

• To catch enough food, wolves must hunt often and test many animals before finding one that they can catch and kill.

• Most packs contain less than eight members.

• Wolves bear an average of six young per litter.

• Wolves become sexually mature at approximately twenty-two months.

•  Strong bonds are needed to hold a pack together; if there were no bonds, each wolf would go its separate way.

•  Most packs include a pair of breeding adults, pups, and extra adults that may also breed.

• Ambushing is used by both single wolves and by packs.

• Wolves at one time had an extensive range, occurring throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Japan.

• The only substantial population of wolves left at present in the contiguous 48 states inhabits northern Minnesota.

•  The wolf does little chewing.

• A wolf can consume almost twenty pounds of prey at a feeding.

• Wolves can maintain a chase for at least twenty minutes.

• The wolf feeds almost exclusively on flesh, bones, and other animal matter.

• Lone wolves have no social territory and rarely scent-mark or howl.

• The range size for a given pack of wolves depends on many environmental factors, particularly prey density.

• It is common for wolves to be moving eight to ten hours in a day.

• A pack may cover distances from 30-125 miles in a day.

•  Wolves possess upwards of two hundred million olfactory cells.

•  wolf's tail hangs while the tail of the dog tends to be held high and is often curly.

• Jackals have one more pair of chromosomes than dogs or wolves.
   
• The English Romantic poet Lord Byron was so devastated upon the death of his beloved Newfoundland, whose name was Boatswain, that he had inscribed upon the dog's gravestone the following: "Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices."
   
• Dogs and humans are the only animals with prostates.
   
• The Pug dog is thought to have gotten it's name from looking like the pug monkey.
   
• According to tests made at the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like people, are either right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they favor either their right or left paws.
• In Egyptian times, the penalty for killing a greyhound was equivalent to that of killing a man.
• More than 40% of pet owners talk to their pets on the phone or through an answering machine.
   
• Twenty-five percent of pet owners blow-dry their pet's hair after a bath.
   
• More than 50 percent of dog and cat owners give their pets a human name.
• Nearly 60% of owners bury their pets on family property when they die; 25 percent have them cremated.
   
• The common belief that dogs are color blind is false. Dogs can see color but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we see. It is much like our vision at twilight.

• There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.

• In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

• In World War II, the ninety million dollars worth of National Biscuit Company products furnished to the US Armed Services included thousands of cases of MILK-BONE BRAND Dog Biscuits, earmarked (no pun intended) for the dogs of the Army and Marine Corps.

• Smartest dogs: 1) border collie; 2)poodle; 3)golden retriever.

• Dumbest dog: afghan.

• Greyhounds can run up to 45 miles an hour for very short periods.

• When a wolf howls it is either marking it's territory, telling other wolves to stay away, trying to find a lost wolf from the pack, or looking for a mate.

• Dogs have 42 teeth, cats about 30.

• Owning two dogs is no more work than owning one, but three dogs is hard work.

• In a suburb of medium density, a dog's bark can be heard in 200 surrounding houses -- or by 800 people.

• Anything over 45 minutes seems like forever to your dog. You will be greeted as enthusiastically coming back from a two-hour shopping trip as you will coming back from a two-day vacation.

• A stray dog who is afraid of people will trust the people associated with the dogs it plays with.

• The old rule -- multiplying a dog's age by 7 to find the equivalent human age -- is fallacious. A dog is able to reproduce at 1 year and has reached full growth by 2 years. To calculate a dog's age in human terms, count the first year at 15, the second year as 10, and each year after that as 5.

• If a dog tolerates gentle handling between its toes, it probably is suited for children.
• If two dogs are headed for a fight and they appear about evenly matched, the dog on his home turf will win easily.

• If you want to be friends with somebody else's dog, let the dog make the first move, and don't be too quick to respond.

• It costs $1.50 a day to feed and care for a sled dog.

• A kennel should be two times the length of the dog you are building it for. Measure the dog from its nose to the tip of its tail.

• The best time for taking a puppy from its litter -- psychologically and physically -- is when it is 49 days old.

• Coyotes are the best runners of all the canids. They have long strong legs and 4 well padded toes with non retractable claws. They can travel great distances, at speeds up to 30 miles an hour (48km).