Interesting facts about dogs

Dogs have a far more interesting history than most of us think. Thought you knew a lot about dogs? Read these interesting facts and think again.

• All dogs are probably descended from a small grey wolf. They were first domesticated by people in the Palaeolithic Age and first seemed to have appeared in Eurasia about 13,000 years ago.

• Dingos are not native to Australia – they were introduced by the first immigrants thousands of years ago.

• Dogs are pack animals and live according to a strict hierarchical system. Even in a domestic situation, where there is more than one dog, one will be the 'top' dog.

• Dogs are intensely territorial, which is why it is easy to train them as guard dogs.

• Dogs have better hearing than humans and cats. They can register sounds of 35,000 vibrations a second (compared to our 20,000 and a cat's 25,000).

• The tallest dogs are the Great Dane and the Irish Wolfhound. The smallest dogs are the Chihuahua, the Yorkshire Terrier and the Toy Poodle.

• Man has about 5 million smelling receptors, but that's not much when compared to to some dog breeds: A Dachshund has 125 million, whilst an Alsatian has 220 million.

• Several different dogs played the part of the dog "Lassie" in several films.

• The fastest dogs on earth are greyhounds, which can reach a top speed of approximately 72km/h.

• The Poodle haircut, funny as it may seem, originally had a purpose. It was meant to improve the dog's swimming abilities as a retriever, and the pom-poms were left in place to warm their joints.

• At age one year, a dog is the equivalent of 16 human years; at two dog years, they are 24 human years; at 3 dog years, 30 human years; and for every dog year after that, add 4 human years.

• Survivors of the Titanic included two dogs: a Pekingese and a Pomeranian.