30 Facts About Dogs I’ll Bet You Didn’t Know
1. Dogs poop in strict alignment with Earth’s north-south magnetic field.
A 2013 study that examined “70 dogs” and “1,893 defecations” concluded that dogs always align their bodies with the Earth’s north-south axis when taking a poop. Humans don’t defecate with nearly the same amount of geomagnetic precision.
2. Two dogs, 6 years, 66,000 puppies.
If you took one male and female dog and never neutered them nor any of their descendants, that pair would be responsible for producing 66,000 puppies in only six years. That is a lot of fucking!
3. Dogs are sociopaths who can’t feel guilt and probably vote Republican.
If you think your dog is feeling guilt because it’s sulking and whimpering after you scolded it, think again, you foolish human! According to Barnard College researcher Alexandra Horowitz, they’re just sad because you’ve been a dick to them. Dogs feel absolutely no guilt and probably even think Donald Trump is funny.
4. Don’t smile at them, or they might attack you.
If you smile and expose your teeth, dogs will interpret your exposed teeth as a sign of aggression, and as already noted, they will feel no guilt leaping into the air and ripping your throat out of its neck.
5. They can fall in love just like humans do.
Oxytocin—known variously as the “love hormone” and the “cuddle hormone”—is released by dog brains, too. It enables them to fall in love with both dogs and humans, and you are not one to question their lifestyle choices nor whom they deign to love.
6. They can smell how you’re feeling.
Dogs have millions more scent receptors than humans do, and they are able to detect subtle changes in your perspiration’s chemical composition that reveal your emotional state. If you don’t want them to know how you’re feeling, maybe you should shower every once in a while. Just a suggestion.
7. They are capable of deception.
According to canine-intelligence expert Stanley Coren, “They can also deliberately deceive, which is something that young children only start developing later in their life.” And you thought only fuckboys on Tinder were liars!
8. They can read your emotions merely by looking at your face.
Besides humans, dogs are the only mammals in the animal kingdom who are able to determine your mood merely by your facial expression. Cats not only aren’t able to tell—they wouldn’t even care if they could.
9. You can go blind just from petting them.
A 2003 study from The Veterinary Record revealed that merely petting a dog infected with a parasitic roundworm known as Toxocara canis can transmit the parasite to humans, at which point the roundworm can nestle in the back of your eyeball and eventually make you go blind. So…pet with caution and wash your hands.
10. They have magical powers that enable them to predict the future.
Dogs can tell that a storm is coming an hour before you’re standing there soaked in the rain because you didn’t think to bring your umbrella.
11. Male French bulldogs are total losers in the sack.
Because of their unusually thin hips, male French bulldogs find it nearly impossible to mount their female partners, which leads to the shame and embarrassment of artificial insemination, which forces the male Frenchie to start perusing men’s-rights chatrooms.
12. The phrase “raining cats and dogs” has a morbid origin.
The term originated in the 1600s in England, when a spate of vicious downpours caused severe flooding. When the streets would clear up, they’d be littered with the corpses of drowned cats and dogs.
13. Doggy menstrual blood was used as an ancient form of Nair.
In ancient Egypt, canine menstrual blood was used to facilitate hair removal on humans.
14. The world’s biggest pet collector owned 5,000 dogs.
Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan was said to have owned 5,000 Mastiffs, which would have easily qualified him to be on a modern episode of Hoarders.
15. Smallest dog ever.
According to The Guinness Book of World Records, a two-year-old Yorkshire Terrier in Great Britain weighed only four ounces and stood a mere 2.5 inches tall at the shoulder. What a tiny little monster!
16. Oldest dog ever.
In 2013, a Louisiana beagle/terrier mix named Max died a mere 83 days short of his 30th birthday.
17. Their paws smell like Frito’s.
The reason for this is that dogs only sweat between their paw pads. The sweat gets mixed up with dirt, which leads to bacteria growth, which makes their paws smell like Frito’s.
18. Their owners can be sickeningly sweet and sappy.
Four-fifths of dog owners buy their pets presents for holidays and birthdays. Seventy percent of them sign their dog’s name on greeting cards. Sixty percent of them even pose with their dogs for family portraits. And a full third of dog owners “talk” to their dogs on the phone or leave voicemail messages for them while they’re away.
19. They are all descended from a 40-million-year-old tree-dwelling weasel.
All modern dogs can trace their ancestry back to a “weasel-like animal” known as the Miacis. This odd little tree-dwelling creature is the forebearer of the wolf and jackal. All modern dogs share 99.9% of their DNA with wolves, who started intermingling with humans around 12,000 years ago. You may not realize it, but there’s a wild savage beast sleeping in your den right now.
20. They are able to smell prostate cancer with 98% accuracy.
Don’t even ask how this is achieved, because I’m already traumatized by the mental images. But not only can dogs sniff out various cancers, they can tell when their owner is going to have a seizure about 45 minutes before the event, which in many cases can be life-saving.
21. They wag their tails to the left when scared and to the right when happy.
And they wag them low when they’re scared and fast when ready to attack.
22. They are as smart as two-year-old children.
The average dog can understand around 150 words. They can also count up to five. And unlike human children, it takes less than two years to potty-train them.
23. They are born deaf, toothless, and blind.
All puppies are born without hearing, without sight, and without teeth. What’s miraculous is that despite all this, they choose to go on living.
24. They can get jealous just like humans do.
A study at UC San Diego showed that when a dog’s owner showed affection to a stuffed animal, the dogs would get more aggressive and display more attention-seeking behavior toward their owners.
25. They are able to dream as vividly as humans do.
When you see your dog twitching and whimpering while asleep and suspect that he’s dreaming, you’re probably right. Brain-wave tests on sleeping dogs are remarkably similar to those of humans. Bet you didn’t know that. What you probably also didn’t know is that your dog constantly dreams of killing you.
26. The smaller the dog, the longer the life.
In general, those tiny yippy lapdogs live about twice as long as those massive dinosaur-like Great Danes and Mastiffs. Canine longevity is also correlated to snout length—flat-faced breeds such as pugs and bulldogs tend to die younger than dogs with long noses.
27. The media still discriminates against female dogs. Call it the “glass kennel.”
The “male” dog Toto in The Wizard of Oz was played by a female Cairn Terrier named Terry. The “male” Taco Bell dog is a female Chihuhua named Gidget. This reminds me of how guys used to play all the male and female roles in Shakespeare plays. When will this sexist madness end?
28. The dog days of summer.
This term dates back to the Roman Empire, when Sirius—the “dog star,” not the satellite radio channel—typically rose from around July 3 to August 11.
29. Guys with dogs are three times more likely to get a girl’s digits.
The British Psychological Society published a 2000 study that revealed walking with your dog triples the amount of social interactions you have. It also makes you three times more likely to walk away with a girl’s phone number than if you’d been walking alone.
30. Nearly 100,000 Americans visit the hospital every year after tripping on their dogs or their dogs’ toys.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that an average of 86,629 Americans visit the emergency room each year after a fall caused by pets or their pets’ playthings. Silly owners—watch where you’re walking!
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