We all know dogs are interesting characters, but do you know some of these little tidbits about our furry friends?
Such as:
• Rin Tin Tin was the first American dog movie star and signed his own contracts for 22 movies with a pawprint.
• Toto’s role in the Wizard of Oz was played by a female Cairn Terrier named Terry.
• George Washington had 36 Foxhounds, and one was named Sweetlips.
• Former President Lyndon Johnson howled with his favorite dog, Yuki, a stray rescued by his daughter Luci at a Texas gas station. He also had two Beagles named Him and Her.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt once spent $15,000 to have a destroyer return the Aleutian Islands and retrieve his Scottie, Fala, who had been accidentally left behind.
• Teddy Roosevelt’s pit bull, Pete, once ripped off a French ambassador’s pants at a White House event.
• Zorba, an English Mastiff, is the heaviest dog on record, weighing 343 pounds at the age of 8 in 1989.
• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the smallest dog on record was a Yorkshire Terrier in Great Britain who, at the age of 2, weighed just 4 ounces.
• The longest lived dog, according to the Guinness Book, was an Australian Cattle Dog named Bluey, who lived to be 29.
• The first living being to travel in space was a small mixed breed dog named Laika, who gave her life orbiting the earth in the Russian Sputnik in 1957.
• John F. Kennedy’s terrier, Charlie, sired 4 puppies with Laika’s daughter, Pushinka.
• The Lundehund breed has 6 toes and can close its ears.
• Chihuahuas are born with a “molera”, or soft spot like a human baby, which usually closes as they mature.
• The only sweat glands a dog has are between the paw pads.
• If none are spayed or neutered, a female dog, her mate, and their offspring can produce 67,000 dogs in 6 years.
• A 12 lb. Yorkie named Oliver once defended an elderly woman from an 80 lb. Akita. The woman escaped to safety and the Yorkie survived with only nine stitches.
