Beyond licking their food bowls clean and being a good sport at fetch (particularly Golden Retrievers), your pup probably boasts a range of capabilities that you don’t even know about. Are you sometimes surprised by occurrences like your pup picking up a scent that is very far off, or even detecting when you’re sad or scared? No, it’s not sorcery! It’s merely dog physiology, and here are 5 mind-blowing facts that you probably didn’t know about pups generally:
- Incredible Sense of Smell
Comparing the area of the human brain that is responsible for smelling to that of your pup, theirs is about 40 times larger. This implies that your dog can pick up a lot more smells than you can imagine. It’s no surprise that they are often used in airports for sniffing out drugs or even people during investigations. They can even pick up on your feelings by smelling a change in your perspiration when you become scared or nervous. It’s not unheard of for a dog to detect certain diseases and there are now cancer-sniffing dogs.
- Some Dogs Can Outrun a Cheetah
This probably sounds far-fetched since you know the cheetah to be the fastest animal. And the Greyhound, the fastest dog breed alive reaches a top speed of 45mph in seconds, while the cheetah easily tops this at 70mph. However, the cheetah can only keep this up for about 30 seconds, while a greyhound can run at 35mph or more for up to 7 miles! So, in the long run (literally), a greyhound would end up overtaking a cheetah.
- Super Sensitive Hearing
You know how you try to tread lightly around sleepy Daisy, but she still stirs, well, it’s because pups can hear much softer sounds than we can. Also, they can hear sounds from further away too! They hear amazingly high frequencies and this one feature contributes to why they’re great for search and rescue. Combining their sense of smell and super-sensitive hearing seals their status as the best trackers.
- Doggo Intelligence is On Par With a Two Year Old Human’s
Wonder why your toddler and your pup get along so well? It’s probably because they speak the same language! Studies have shown that your dog can understand up to 250 words or gestures, placing their intelligence on the same level as your two-year-old’s. But of course, your dog is easier to train than your two-year-old, and would probably do what you want her to more often.
- Your Dog Has a Dominant Paw!
Yes, a few studies have centered around this and shown that just like humans, pups also favor a particular paw over the other. How to know your dog’s? Well, give him one of his favorite toys or games and see which paw he reaches out to pull it closer first. Also, look out for the first paw that your pup puts out when preparing to walk. This is another way of detecting their preferred paw.
