Here is some fun dog facts that you may find interesting, useful or just plain silly.  Keep your noses up and tails wagging!

· The average dog has 42 permanent teeth.

· The phrase “raining cats and dogs” originated in 17th Century England.  During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets.  The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained “cats and dogs” and led to the current expression.

· The Beatles son Martha My Dear was written by Paul McCartney about his sheepdog Martha.

· Dalmatian puppies are pure white at birth

· There are about 68 million dogs with owners in the United States.

· Former US President Teddy Roosevelt’s pit-bull Pete once ripped off a French Ambassador’s trousers at a White House event.

· Greyhounds can reach a speed of up to 45 miles per hour.

· Medical records indicate that heart attack patients who own dogs show a notably better-than-average chance of survival.  The same is not true of cat owners, who recover at the same rate as non-pet owners.

· The name of the dog on the Cracker Jack box in Bingo.

· Prairie dogs are not dogs.  A prairie dog is a kind of rodent.

· Two dogs survived the sinking of Titanic, yes that’s right, two dogs survived.  They escaped on early lifeboats carrying so few people that no one objected.  Miss Margaret Hays of New York brought her Pomeranian with her in lifeboat number seven, while Henry Sleeper Harper of the publishing family boarded boat number three with his Pekinese, Sun Yat Sen.

· Every minute, dogs take ten to thirty breaths.

· The first seeing-eye dog was presented to a blind person on April 25, 1938.

· There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.

· Walt Disney’s family dog was named Lady.  She was a poodle.

· The first search and rescue dog on the scene of the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, was Bear, an 11 year old Golden Retriever.  He began recovery efforts immediately, working 18 hour days in the beginning.

· Dogs do not have an appendix.

· Bassets cannot swim.  Their legs are too short to keep their heavy, long bodies afloat.

· Female dog bites are twice as numerous as male bites.

· Based on an average life span of 11 years, the cost of owning a dog is $13,350.

· Adolf Hitler’s favorite dog, A German Shepherd named Blondi, was used to make sure his cyanide capsules were lethal.  Hitler used the cyanide to commit suicide when he saw it worked on Blondi.

· The Basenji is the only bark less dog in the world.

· In the original 101 Dalmatians movie, Pongo has 72 spots, Perdita has 68 and each of the puppies has 32.

· Dogs have about 100 different facial expressions, most of them made with the ears.  Unfortunately, the likes of bulldogs and pit bulls only have 10, due to their breeding.  Therefore, these dogs easily get misinterpreted by other dogs and often get into fights.

· The canine nose works one million times more efficiently than the human nose.

· The world’s tallest dog is a Great Dane from Sacramento, CA named Gibson.  He measures 7 feet when standing upright.

· When a puppy is born, he is blind, deaf, and toothless.

· Today “Max” continues t be the most popular dog name in the US, while Rover comes in at 2,866th place, according to Veterinary Pet Insurance.

· Toto’s role in The Wizard of Oz was played by a female Cairn terrier named Terry.

· The expression “three dog night” originated with the Eskimos and means a very cold night – so cold that you have to bed down with three dogs to keep warm.

· It was recently discovered that dogs DO see in color, just not as vivid as the color that humans see.

· Dogs and wolves yawn as a sign as contentment.

· Rin Tin Tin, probably the most famous American German Shepherd was actually born in France in September of 1918.  Rin Tin Tin ultimately made 26 pictures for Warner Brothers before his death on August 10, 1932.  At the peak of his career with Warner Brothers he received some 10,000 fan letters a week and was considered to be one of Hollywood’s top stars.

· Contrary to popular belief, dogs do not sweat by salivating.  They sweat through the pads of their feet.

· Dogs are mentioned 14 times in the Bible.

· Barbara Bush’s book about her English springer spaniel, Millie’s book, was on the bestseller list for 29 weeks.  Millie was the most popular “First Dog” in history.

· Dogs have a sense of smell that is one of the keenest in nature.  Humans might smell a pot of stew cooking on the stove, but a dog can distinguish the smells of each individual ingredient, from the beef itself to the potatoes.

· The longest lived dog, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was an Australian Cattle Dog named Bluey, who lived to be 29.

· Every known dog except the chow has a pink tongue – the chow’s is jet black.

· The name of the dog from “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” is Max.

· The Basset Hound made famous in the Hush Puppies shoe commercials was named Biggles.  Biggles grandson, Mr. Jeffries earned fame as the dog with the longest ears in the world.  His ears measured 11.5 inches each and he often tripped over them.

· For Stephen King’s ”Cujo” (1983), five St. Bernard’s were used, one mechanical head, and an actor in a dog costume to play the title character.

· A dog’s whiskers - found on the muzzle, above the eyes and below the jaws – are technically known as vibrissae.  They are touch sensitive hairs that actually sense minute changes in airflow.

· There are more than 100 million dogs and cats in the United States.  Americans spend more than 5.4 billion dollars on their pets each year.

· The last member of the famous Bonaparte family, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, died in 1945, of injuries sustained from tripping over his dog’s leash.

· According to ancient Greek literature, when Odysseus arrived home after an absence of 20 years, disguised as a beggar, the only one to recognize him was his aged dog Argos, who wagged his tail at his master, and then died.

· Lassie was played by several male dogs, despite the female name, because male collies were thought to look better on camera.  The main ”actor” was named Pal.

· Lassie, the TV collie, first appeared in a 1930′s short novel titled Lassie Come Home written by Eric Mowbray Knight.  The dog in the novel was based on Knight’s real life collie, Toots.

· An American Animal Hospital Association poll showed that 33 percent of dog owners admit that they talk to their dogs on the phone or leave messages on an answering machine while away.

· The term “dog days” has nothing to do with dogs.  It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July 3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures.  The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or “days of the dog”.

· Human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.

· Marie Antoinette’s dog was a spaniel named Thisbe.

· The smallest of the recognized dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is also the one that usually lives the longest.  Named for the region of Mexico where they were first discovered in the mid-19th century, the Chihuahua can live anywhere between 11 – 18 years.

· Before the enactment of the 1978 law that made it mandatory for dog owners in New York City to clean up after their pets, approximately 40 million pounds of dog excrement were deposited on the streets every year.

· Pekingese dogs were sacred to the emperors of China for more than 2,000 years.  They are one of the oldest breeds of dogs in the world.

· Dachshunds are the smallest breed of dog used for hunting.  They are low to the ground, which allows them to enter and maneuver through tunnels easily.

· French poodles did not originate in France.  Poodles were originally used as hunting dogs in Europe.  The dog’s thick coats were a hindrance in water and thick brush, so hunters sheared the hindquarters, with cuffs left around the ankles and hips to protect against rheumatism.  Each hunter marked his dog’s heads with a ribbon of his own color, allowing groups of hunters to tell their dogs apart.

· Korea‘s poshintang – dog meat soup – is a popular item on summertime menus, despite outcry from other nations.  The soup is believed to cure summer heat ailments, improve male virility, and improve women’s complexions.