An Australian cattle dog. And a corgi. They look pretty different, but they’re all examples of humans’ very first pets — dogs! Even if you have a dog of your own, I bet you don’t know some of these amazing things about our furry best friends.
For example! Did you know that all dogs are related to wolves? That’s right! This is related to this. Remember how I said dogs were human’s first pets? Well, about 15,000 years ago, humans live da long side wolves. And in time, some of these wolves became domesticated, meaning that they changed from being wild, to being able to live and even work closely with humans.
So, over thousands of years, some of those wolves became the domesticated dogs we know and love! Wild wolves still live in many places in the world today. But there are also more than 400 different breeds of dogs! And all of the wolves and dogs on Earth are thought to have descended from the same animal: a predator that roamed our planet millions of years ago.
Scientists called it Eucyon davisi, and it looked a lot like today’s wolves, with one major difference: It was probably a lot bigger. So if all wolves and dogs descended from this early predator, that means wolves and dogs are related! Dogs are also related to other animals that look a lot like them — including foxes, jackals, and coyotes.
Together with wolves, these meat-eating mammals are called canines. That’s one big furry family! Now, another cool thing about dogs? They’re super-smellers! Their sensitive noses have 40 times more cells in them for smelling than ours do — plus they have the ability to wiggle their noses in ways that we can’t! And that’s not just a neat trick—by wiggling each nostril separately, dogs can figure out which direction a smell is coming from.
So, when they’re born, puppies can’t hear or see anything, but they quickly learn to find their mom—and other important things in the world around them—just by using their sense of smell. Dogs also use their smelling skills when they meet new dog friends. Instead of shaking paws or barking to say hello, dogs sniff each other’s butts! Dogs don’t recognize each other by name,or even by looks; they identify other dogs by how they smell.
That’s where they sniff, because all dogs have special scent glands on their rears, and dogs use those scents to learn about each other! By sniffing, a dog can tell if another pupis young or old, a boy or a girl, if he’s sick or healthy, and even what kind of mood he’s in! Not all dog sniffing involves butts, though.
Lots of dogs put their powerful sense of smell to use in other ways: Some dogs can sniff out and rescue people who are lost, some hunt for escaped criminals, and a few are even being trained to sniff out deadly diseases.
That’s awesome! Super dogs to the rescue! And lastly, our third cool thing about dogs:Some of them can remember more words than a baby person. Even though they can’t talk, dogs make great listeners. Most of them can understand about 165 words—way more than just “sit,” or “stay.” And some can remember even more than that.
One border collie was trained to understand over a thousand spoken words–and she learned those words as quickly as a small child would. So, dogs are smart! Now, whenever you see a pooch — whether it looks like Abby, Auzzy, Louie, or someone completely different — you’ll know that you’re looking at a really smart relative of wild wolves with a super sense of smell! If you’d like us to sniff out more information about dogs, or anything, just let us know by leaving a comment.
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