Photo: Kemal Yaylali (flickr)
1. Where do the “dog days of summer” come from?
This term was coined by ancient astronomers to describe the period of days when Sirius (The Dog Star) rises with the sun.
2. Do they conduct a doggy census?
No, silly, dogs can’t hold pencils! However, the predicted number of dogs around the world is about 400,000 million. In human population terms, that’s about the size of the U.S. and Mexico.
3. Do dogs really have a nose for cancer?
In a 2006 study, it was found that with a little bit of training, a normal household dog could detect early and late stages of lung and breast cancer! A separate Swedish study showed that dogs could even distinguish between different types of ovarian cancer.
4. Did you ever notice that dogs look like their owners?
It’s true! One British study asked people to look at photos and match different people with similar looking dog breeds. More than half the time the matches they made were really the breeds that the owners had!
5. Who could beat a dog in a hearing contest?
You may know that dogs can hear frequencies up to 45,000 Hz (twice as high as us). However, the real hero of hearing doesn’t even look like it has ears… it’s the tortoise! They can pick up frequencies of 150,000 Hz.
- 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Dogs (Discover)