Pet-tastic Fun Facts

It’s the final day of voting in our “wildly” successful Pet-tastic Photo Contest.

So, here we are, with over 32,000 votes thus far, and over 13,000 entries! Thank you all for participating! Wow, do we love our pets.

You have until midnight tonight to cast your final vote. While we wait for the results, I thought it would be fun to research some pet fun facts and share them with you!

Here’s one to get us started…

Dog Fun Facts

• Dalmatians are born without spots!  They start life with white coats. Their very first spots start appearing after one week.
• Every pup has a unique nose print, and no 2 are alike.
• Dogs have a very strong sense of smell, about 1000 times greater than yours or mine.
• Snoopy, from the “Peanuts” comic strip, is a beagle.
• Dogs only sweat from the bottoms of their feet, the only way they can discharge heat is by panting.
• Domesticated for more than 10,000 years, the dog was one of the first animals domesticated by humans.
• Greyhounds are the world’s fastest dogs with the ability to reach up to 45 mph.
• Dogs have about 100 different facial expressions, most of them made with the ears. So, yes, they could be smiling at you!

Cat Fun Facts

• Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
• Cats have no collarbone, which is one reason they are so flexible.
• Our feline friends have better memories than our pooches. Tests conducted by the University of Michigan concluded that while a dog’s memory lasts no more than 5 minutes, a cat’s can last as long as 16 hours (that’s even greater than monkeys and orangutans).
• Cats are well groomed! They spend about 30% of their waking ours cleaning themselves.
• A pack of kittens is called a kindle, while a pack of adult cats is called a clowder.
• Cats do not have sweat glands.
• A cat can jump as much as seven times its height.
• An adult cat can run about 12 miles per hour, and sprint at nearly thirty miles per hour.

Final Pet Fact

• 94% of pet owners say their animal pal makes them smile more than once a day.