Dogs often dream-Dogs experience similar stages of dreaming to humans including rapid eye movement (REM-this is the stage of dreaming that we remember). Twitches and paw movements are some of the signs of dreaming. Harvard experts suggest that dogs often dream about their owners.
- Some dogs have the ability to learn a similar amount of words as a two-year old child. Topping the intelligence category are Border Collies who can understand up to 200 words, followed by Poodles, Retrievers and Dobermanns.
- A dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 times better than ours.
- A wagging tail is the most recognisable form of communication, but it isn’t always positive. A wagging tail to the right can mean they are happy, wagging to the left means frightened. If they raise their tail it may mean they are anxious.
- Dogs sometimes share our emotions -getting stressed or upset when their owners do. They can feel a range of emotions from optimism and pessimism to depression and jealousy.
- It’s an old myth that dogs see in black and white. Although they see differently to humans, they are still able to detect strains of yellow and blue and are only red-green colour-blind.
- Dogs’ paws can be smelly, but with good reason-their sweat glands are located on the pads of their paws.
- Dogs’ closest living relatives are wolves.
- A dog’s nose print is as unique in identifying them as our fingerprint is to us.
- Dogs align themselves with the earth’s magnetic field before defecating. They prefer to face either north or south before doing their business.
