What The Pup's Interesting Dog Facts

We don’t know about you, but we never get tired of learning new and interesting dog facts especially if it helps us understand our four legged best friends a little better. In the spirit of learning more about your pup, here is our list of the top 5 fun dog facts that all pet parents should know about their pup.

Our top 5 interesting dog facts:

Fun Fact Number 5: Dogs yawn when you yawn

Have you ever noticed your pup yawning after you do? Well, research shows that dogs experience contagious yawning, which is yawning after watching or hearing someone else yawn. We love an empathetic king! In fact, dogs will yawn even when only hearing a recording of someone yawning! It is unclear why dogs experience this phenomenon, but it appears to be related to how emotionally connected a dog is to the yawner; dogs are four times as likely to experience contagious yawning if the yawner is someone they know. The next time you want to assess how much your dog feels emotionally connected to you, you may want to watch them after you yawn!

Fun Fact Number 4: A legendary sense of smell

You may already know that your pup has a better sense of smell than you. But did you know that it is up to 60 times better?! Dog noses have as many as 300 million scent receptors, whereas ours only have about 5 million. Because their noses are so sensitive, dogs can be used to scent out many things (including people!), which is why you may notice dogs at the airport or crime scenes. Some dog noses are so good that the results of their scent tracking can be used as evidence in a court of law and they can be trained to diagnose some types of medical conditions with an up to 99% accuracy rate. In fact, dog noses are wet because it helps them absorb scents and better understand what it is they are actually smelling!

Fun Fact Number 3: Not sure if you heard, but your definitely dog did

Does your pup ever perk up as if they hear something but you don’t? Well, dogs can hear both higher frequencies and more clearly than humans, which means your pup can pick up on much softer or nearly silent noises. This ability gives them cool superpowers such as predicting natural phenomena like earthquakes or even helping you spot a deer when out hiking together. However, this ability does not start from day 1: dogs are actually born deaf and over time develop the ability to hear up to a quarter of a mile away. If you want to put your pup’s superior hearing to the test, play them “A Day in the Life” and see what happens (Paul McCartney said he included a secret sound for dogs in the Beatles song)!

Fun Fact Number 2: Dream a little dream of me

Have you ever noticed your pup twitching in their sleep? Their nose or feet moving as if they are chasing a squirrel or their best friend at the dog park? Maybe they’ve even let out a soft bark while fast asleep? Well research has found that dogs, like some other animals, do in fact dream and have similar sleep patterns to humans. This means they can also have nightmares or upsetting dreams. Puppies and senior dogs dream more frequently than other dogs, but it is still unclear what exactly they dream about. That being said, some dogs demonstrate breed specific behaviors in their sleep, so if you have a pointer you may notice them pointing!

Interesting Dog Facts Number 1: A not so good sense of taste

Even though your pup is able to smell and hear better than you, they actually can’t taste as well as you. Dogs only have a sixth of the taste buds as humans (although, they do have dedicated taste buds for water, which we don’t!). This can still mean that your pup might prefer certain types of food or be a picky eater though! To compensate for their smaller number of taste buds, dogs actually use their sense of smell to taste their food. So the next time you buy your pup’s favorite treat or meal, remember that they actually enjoy its smell and not its taste!