Any dog owner will tell you endless facts about their dog that you may not have known. However, canines are such complex creatures that there’s information even their owners don’t know about them. Whether you’re about to adopt a dog or eager to learn something new, here are a few incredible dog facts you may not have known.
They Can Be Trained to Detect Bed Bugs
If you’ve ever wondered, can dogs sniff out bed bugs, the answer is yes. The average dog has over 300 million receptors in their nose, compared to just 30 million in humans. Not only can they be trained to sniff out missing people, explosives, and narcotics, but experts can also train them to sniff out bed bugs.
Many dogs are trained to locate live bugs and eggs in almost any part of your home, including sheets, bedding, and closets. They can even tell the difference between bed bugs and other household pests.
Dogs Don’t Sweat Like We Do
When we exercise or head out into the sunshine, we produce sweat to cool down our bodies. However, dogs cool down differently. They produce sweat on the furless parts of their bodies, such as their paw pads, but they rely on panting as a form of evaporative cooling. When they pant, water evaporates from their nasal passages, lungs, and tongue to lower their body temperature.
They Have 18 Muscles in Their Ears
We can learn a lot from a dog by their body language and even how they move their ears. As a result, it’s probably unsurprising that they have approximately 18 muscles in their ears. These muscles help them change their direction, raise and lower them, and tilt them.
Dogs Protect Their Organs
If you’ve ever noticed how your canine friend will curl up in a ball when they’re sleeping or in an uncomfortable situation, it might be for a good reason. In the wild, canines would curl up in balls while sleeping to protect their organs, especially if they felt vulnerable to attacks by predators. While dogs can sleep in a range of comical positions, curling up into a ball remains one of the most common.
Dogs Are Not Colorblind
A misconception is that dogs can only see in black and white. While their color range is far more limited than ours, they are capable of seeing some colors. The idea that they couldn’t come from the past editor of a dog magazine. He claimed that dogs’ vision was poor and that they could only make out outlines and shapes in single shades.
In a 1937 dog training manual, he wrote that it was ‘likely’ the world would look like highlights of black and gray to them. However, it was later discovered that color blind people and dogs are missing red-green cones, which are used in bright light and to control color perception.
Dogs are complex, but you may not have been aware of just how interesting they are. These incredible facts are just a few of the many you may learn over your dog’s lifetime, opening your eyes to their capabilities and quirks.
