Here is 25 Kickass and Interesting Facts About Dogs – Part 3. For part 1, click here. For part 2, click here.
1-5 Interesting Facts About Dogs
1. Peter Steiner, the guy who created the cartoon “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” has earned over US $50,000 from its reprinting. – Source
2. Toto, the dog in The Wizard of Oz (1939), was paid $125 a week while the Munchkin actors reportedly received $50 to $100 a week. – Source
3. Macadamia nuts represent a great threat to dogs. If consumed in even small amounts, these nuts can cause severe neurological symptoms, including weakness, vomiting, walking “drunk,” tremoring, lameness (especially in the rear legs) or even a complete (but temporary) inability to walk. It is unknown exactly what toxin macadamia nuts contain that causes this reaction in dogs. – Source
4. The reason cats and dogs like to sunbath because the UV radiation from sun breaks down the chemical bonds in their natural oil, producing vitamin D3. However, due to their fur, the vitamin would just end up on their hair and doesn’t get absorbed by the skin. When they lick their body to clean or groom themselves, that is the time they ingest Vitamin D. Vitamin D gets into their system via the oral route. – Source
5. Spayed/neutered dogs and cats live longer not only because it makes them less susceptible to reproductive diseases, but also because it makes them less likely to roam and get into fights. – Source
6-10 Interesting Facts About Dogs
6. In 2006, a trained Beagle assistance dog in Florida was credited with saving the life of its owner for biting onto owner’s cell phone to call 911 after the diabetic man had a seizure and collapsed. – Source
7. In the Dark ages up to the 1800s, animals were sentenced for human crimes. Dogs, pigs, cows, rats and even flies and caterpillars were arraigned in court on charges ranging from murder to obscenity. – Source
8. Paleontological research shows that the part of the human brain that controls hearing and our sense of smell shrank around the same time as we began to domesticate dogs. – Source
9. In 2007, a German man was sent to prison for five months for training his dog Adolf to raise his right paw every time he said “Heil Hitler!” – Source
10. German shepherds were renamed to “Alsatian Wolf Dog” after World War I due to the anti-German sentiment of the era. – Source
11-15 Interesting Facts About Dogs
11. The first unofficial mascot of the USPS, Owney the Postal Dog, actually went “postal” in 1897. After biting a worker, the :Toledo postmaster summoned a police officer, who shot him, thus ending the career of the famous little dog.” – Source
12. On 20 July 1981, 24-year-old David Allen Kirwan from La Canada, California, was driving through Yellowstone’s Fountain Paint Pot thermal area with his friend Ronald Ratliff and Ratliff’s dog Moosie. David Kirwan jumped into a near-boiling hot spring at 200°F (93°C) in Yellowstone, after Ratliff’s dog escaped the truck and ran into the Celestine Pool and began yelping. Several people tried to stop him by yelling warnings, but he replied “Like hell I won’t!” and then entered. Both perished. – Source
13. There is a bridge in Scotland where dogs are known to commit suicide. In the past fifty years, over fifty dogs have visited the bridge and leapt to their death. – Source
14. Sergeant Stubby is the most decorated war dog of World War I and the only dog to be nominated for rank and then promoted to sergeant through combat. He served in 17 battles, warned his regiment of gas attacks and incoming artillery, located wounded soldiers, and held a German soldier by his pants until other American soldiers found him. – Source
15. In 2005, a dog in USA was sent a subpoena to appear in court as a murder witness but was denied as dogs were not allowed in the courthouse. – Source
16-20 Interesting Facts About Dogs
16. The Labrador Retriever was bred in Newfoundland, and the Newfoundland dog was bred in Labrador. – Source
17. Analysis of dog mitochondrial DNA suggests that all dogs can be traced back to the domestication of wolves 11,000 to 16,000 years ago in South West China. – Source
18. Pavlov’s student Horsley Gnatt trained a dog to anticipate food with one tone, punishment with another. He then gradually made the tones increasingly similar. Nick the dog became so anxious, whenever reminded of the tones that it would get nervous erections and spontaneously ejaculate. – Source
19. The dog Laika, one of the first animals in space, “was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow. Soviet scientists chose to use Moscow stray dogs since they assumed that such animals had already learned to endure conditions of extreme cold and hunger.” – Source
20. Puppy pregnancy syndrome is a psychosomatic condition where an individual believes, after being bitten by a dog, that puppies are conceived in their abdomen. – Source
21-25 Interesting Facts About Dogs
21. The PDSA Dickin Medal was instituted in 1943 in the United Kingdom by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in war. The medal was awarded 54 times between 1943 and 1949 – to 32 pigeons, 18 dogs, three horses, and one cat – to acknowledge actions of gallantry or devotion during the Second World War, and subsequent conflicts. – Source
22. The phrase “three dog night”, meaning it is so cold you would need three dogs in bed with you to keep warm, originated with the Chukchi people of Siberia, who kept the Siberian Husky landrace dog that became the modern purebred breed of Siberian Husky. – Source
23. In 2010, a dog bit off his owner’s big toe because she could smell it was infected, and ended up saving his life. – Source
24. Abraham Lincoln’s loyal dog Fido was needlessly murdered shortly after the President’s assassination. – Source
25. A Swiss dogsledder died of hypothermia in the Canadian arctic and was eaten by his dogs. All that was left of him was his head, guarded by the lead dog. – Source
