If you’re getting a dog for the first time and you have kids, it’s worth getting them involved in the process from the very beginning.
It’s a fact that kids will naturally be very excited about getting a dog anyway and probably can’t wait for their new best friend to arrive.
While they’re waiting though you can pique their interest even more with these fascinating and fun facts about dogs.
You may even learn a few things yourself!
Fun facts about dogs for kids
Dogs are amazing creatures – more amazing than many people realize. These fun facts about dogs show just what remarkable animals they are:
- While adult humans will normally have 32 teeth, adult dogs have 42 teeth. Similarly, human babies have 20 teeth compared to a puppy’s 28.
- A dog’s nose is wet and it uses this wetness to sort and filter out smells. This makes it easier for the dog’s brain to identify different smells more quickly.
- According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the tallest dog ever was a Great Dane called Zeus who was 1.118 metres tall. Sadly Zeus passed away in September 2014.
- Greyhounds are the fastest dogs. They can run at speeds up to 45 miles per hour. Not only are they the fastest dogs, but they also rank as the second fastest land animal. Only the cheetah is faster.
- Scientists used to think that dogs were colorblind but now they think that dogs have limited color vision – they can’t see colors as well has humans.
- Brown is the most common doggy eye color.
- Although humans only have two eyelids, an upper one and a lower one, dogs have three eyelids.
- Dogs are deaf when they’re born and don’t start being able to hear until they’re about 12 days old.
- Every different breed of dog has the same number of teeth (42) and the same number of bones (321).
- A dog’s jaws are capable of delivering 200 pounds of pressure per square inch.
- A dog’s sense of smell is the main way that they find out information. Their sense of smell is thousands of times better than humans.
- The Basenji is a unique dog that originates in the Central Africa. They don’t bark. Instead they let out a high-pitched “yodel”. Their behavior has been described as cat-like – they groom like cats, and are known to climb trees.
- Each dog’s nose print is completely unique. Their nose prints can be used to identify them in the same way that humans can be identified through their fingerprints.
- Nearly three-quarters of dog owners admit to signing their dog’s name on greetings cards.
- The heaviest breed of dog is the St Bernard.
- The first animal to go into space was a dog called Laika on the 22nd July, 1951.
- During the first few weeks of their life, puppies will spend 90% of the time asleep.
- Despite their appearance, a Pug is more closely related to a wolf than a German Shepherd is.
- Dogs have been domesticated for a long time but they still have many of their wild instincts. One such instinct is burying bones or food to retrieve later. This is an important survival tactic when you’re not sure where your next meal will come from.
- Your dog probably turns around in circles before they lie down. This is another old instinct that they still have. In the wild, the turning around flattens the grass and scares off anything that might be lurking in it.
- Dogs can hear noises from up to 4 times as far away as humans can.
- The oldest dog on record lived to be 29 years and 5 months old.
- Although Dalmatians are famous for their spots, their puppies are completely white when they’re born. They don’t get their spots until they’re about 3 or 4 weeks old.
- According to the American Kennel Club, the most popular dog breed in America is the Labrador Retriever.
- Dogs can see in the dark.
- While humans sweat all over their skin, dogs only sweat through their paw pads.
- Puppies should never be removed from their litter before they are 8 weeks old. Those early weeks with the litter are a vital time of learning to co-exist with others. Puppies taken away from their mothers too young are harder to train and often have aggression issues.
- Dogs have special reflective layers in their eyes. These give them better night vision than humans.
- Dogs can’t tell the time (obviously!) but they do have an excellent in-built clock. This is how they always seem to know when it’s time to eat, or when someone is due home.
- Dogs will repeat actions that they know work. This explains why they keep chasing cars. They chase a car and it drives off. To the dog, they’ve successfully chased it away, so the next time they see a car they repeat this successful (to them) behavior.
- You may have noticed your dog swivels his ears in order to pick up interesting sounds. To help them do this, a dog’s ears have twice as many muscles as ours do.
We hope you enjoyed these fun facts about dogs. And we hope you have a long and happy relationship with your dog too!