Dogs Facts
Do you know?

• Worlds largest dog..... The worlds heaviest as well as longest dog ever recorded was an Old English Mastiff named Zorba. In 1989, Zorba weighed 343 lbs and was 8 feet 3 inches long from nose to tail!
  
• Worlds tallest dog..... The tallest dog on record was named Shamgret Danzas. He was 42 inches tall (at the shoulder!) and weighed 238 lbs.
  
• Worlds smallest dog..... The smallest dog in history was a tiny Yorkie from Blackburn, England. At two years of age and fully grown this little dude was an incredible 2.5 inches tall by 3.75 inches long! He weighed only 4 ounces! HE was approximately the size of a matchbox.
  
• Dogs can see color but it is not as vivid a color scheme as we see. It is much like our vision at twilight.
  
• Some authorities estimate that some dogs sense of olfaction (smelling) is as high as 1 million times greater than ours.
  
• The basenji, an African wolf dog, is the only dog that cannot bark.
  
• A dog can hear sounds 250 yards away that most people cannot hear beyond 25 yards. The human ear can detect sound waves vibrating at frequencies up to 20,000 times a second. But dogs can hear sound waves that vibrate at frequencies of more than 30,000 times a second.
  
• A dog's heart beats between 70 and 120 times a minute, compared with a human heart which beats 70 to 80 times a minute.
  
• The tallest dogs are the Great Dane and the Irish Wolfhound. The largest Great Dane stood at 103cm and an Irish Wolfhound 100cm.
  
• The oldest reliable age recorded for a dog is 29 years, 5 months for a Queensland 'heeler' called Bluey in Victoria, Australia. The average dog lives to around 15 years of age.
  
• The normal body temperature for a dog is 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
• Dogs are pack animals by nature. They need closeness, touching, and petting to be content and happy.
  
• Dogs are able to see much better in dim light than humans are. This is due to the tapetum lucidum, a light-reflecting layer behind the retina. Because it functions like a mirror, it also accounts for the strange shine or glow in a dog's eyes at night.
  
• The average dog lives 8 to 15 years.
  
• A dog is a true friend, and one you can be certain will never talk about you, no matter what you do.
  
• People have been keeping dogs as pets for the past 12,000 years.
  
• At birth puppies are deaf, blind, and have almost no sense of smell. They stay near their mother and siblings because of the warmth.
  
• To a young, exercise and play are the day's most important events. As a dog gets older, he lives for dinner time.
  
• There's no such thing as a dumb dog; after all, while we're out working all day, they're home sleeping.
  
• A dog needs to work off excess energy every day.
  
• Dogs become loyal not because you feed them, but because of the companionship you give them.
  
• Never wake a sleeping dog by poking or shaking it.
  
• A dog's smile runs from the depth of his eyes to the tip of his tail.