181 Fun Facts About Dogs

Which Atlantic island group's Latin name means 'Islands of the Dogs'?

Canary Islands: the Roman writer Pliny described an island called Canaria, home to huge dogs, and the songbird takes its name from the islands, not the other way round.

Which teeth does a dog use like scissors to shear meat?

Carnassials: on each side the last upper premolar and the first lower molar slide past each other as the jaw closes, so a dog slices meat with the side of its mouth, not its front teeth.

Which dog is famous for waiting at a Tokyo train station for nearly 10 years after its owner's death?

Hachiko met the evening train at Shibuya Station for more than nine years after his owner, Professor Hidesaburo Ueno, died in 1925; a bronze statue outside the station honours him.

What breed was Lassie, the famous TV and movie dog?

Lassie is a Rough Collie: Eric Knight's 1938 story made the character famous, and Pal, the Rough Collie who played her in the 1943 film, founded the line used on screen for decades.

Dogs have around 1,700 taste buds; roughly how many do humans have?

Humans have roughly 9,000 taste buds, about five times a dog's 1,700, which is one reason dogs judge food far more by smell than by taste.

Which dog breed is known as the "firehouse dog" due to its historical association with fire departments?

Dalmatians trotted beside horse-drawn fire engines as carriage dogs, a job they already did for coaches; when motor trucks replaced the horses, firehouses kept them on as mascots.

Zeus, the tallest dog ever recorded at 44 inches (111.8 cm) at the shoulder, belonged to which breed?

Great Dane: Zeus, from Otsego, Michigan, took the record from another Great Dane, Giant George, even though a different breed stands taller on average.

The first dog to orbit Earth was a stray picked up from the streets of which city?

Laika was a stray found on the streets of Moscow; Sputnik 2 was readied in about four weeks and launched on 3 November 1957 with no plan to bring her back.

Which hunting breed's silver-gray coat earned it the nickname 'Gray Ghost'?

The Weimaraner, named for the city of Weimar, was first used to hunt big game and later retrained as a bird dog and retriever.

What is the smallest dog breed in the world by height?

The Chihuahua, the smallest recognised breed, is thought to descend from the Techichi, a small dog kept by the Toltecs of Mexico centuries before the Spanish arrived.

What breed of dog was Rin Tin Tin, the famous early Hollywood star?

Rin Tin Tin was a German Shepherd whose silent films were such hits that he is credited with saving the struggling Warner Bros. studio from bankruptcy.

Unlike humans, dogs have taste buds at the tip of the tongue tuned specifically to what?

Water: these taste buds sit on the part of the tongue a dog curls to lap, and they grow more sensitive after salty or sugary food, when the body needs more fluid.

What are the hairs along a dog's neck and back that bristle when it is frightened or angry called?

Hackles are the hairs on a dog's neck and back, which bristle as part of the fight-or-flight response; that reflex gave English the phrase 'to get one's hackles up'.

Which German breed was developed to follow badgers into their burrows?

Dachshund translates to "badger dog" in German (Dachs = badger, Hund = dog). Their long, low body was specifically bred to follow badgers into their burrows.

Which sled dog led the final leg of the 1925 diphtheria serum run across Alaska?

Balto led Gunnar Kaasen's team on the final leg of the relay, arriving on 2 February 1925; his bronze statue was unveiled in New York's Central Park that December.

Which dog show, first held in 1877, ranks among America's longest-running sporting events?

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show has been held every year since 1877, through the Depression, both world wars and the pandemic, making it one of the oldest continuously held sporting events in the United States.

Researchers found that a dog greeting its owner wags its tail with a bias toward which side?

Right: in a 2007 Italian study, dogs wagged more to the right on seeing their owner and more to the left when facing an unfamiliar, dominant dog.

Which dog breed is known as the "King of Terriers" due to being the largest terrier breed?

The Airedale Terrier, largest of the terriers, comes from the valley of the River Aire in Yorkshire; bred as an all-round farm and hunting dog, it went on to serve as a war dog and police dog in Britain.

How do dogs primarily sweat to regulate their body temperature?

Dogs sweat through their paw pads, where their merocrine sweat glands sit; the glands elsewhere in their skin give off scent rather than cooling sweat, so sweating does little to cool them.

The AKC's ten-step CGC test certifies a dog as what?

Canine Good Citizen: the ten-step test of basic manners is open to mixed breeds as well as purebreds, and passing it is a prerequisite for many therapy-dog programmes.

Which dog breed was originally bred by monks in the Swiss Alps to rescue travelers lost in snow?

Saint Bernards take their name from the hospice that Bernard of Menthon founded on a high Alpine pass to shelter pilgrims bound for Rome; its monks later bred the dogs to find travellers buried by avalanches.

A survey of over 3,000 British dogs found which disease caused about twice as many deaths as heart disease?

Cancer was blamed for nearly 16 percent of deaths in the 1999 survey, about twice the share of heart disease; later research found large breeds die of it more often than small ones.

Which compound in chocolate makes it poisonous to dogs?

Theobromine: dogs break it down far more slowly than people do, and the darker and more bitter the chocolate, the more of it there is.

Mexico's hairless dog, the Xoloitzcuintli, is named after a god of which civilisation?

Aztec: the name joins Xolotl, their dog-headed god, to the Nahuatl word for dog; the hairless dogs were often buried with their owners to lead their souls to the next world.

The Welsh breed name Corgi is a compound of two words meaning 'dog' and what?

Corgi joins the Welsh cor, 'dwarf', with ci, 'dog'; the low-slung Pembroke was bred to herd cattle, nipping at heels below the reach of a kick.

What is the popular term for a deliberate cross of two purebreds, such as the Labradoodle?

Designer dog: Wally Conron bred the first Labradoodle in Australia in the 1980s, hoping to pair a Poodle's low-shedding coat with a Labrador's steadiness, and has since said he regrets starting the trend.

Which AKC group, the newest of the seven, was carved out of the Working Group in 1983?

The Herding Group was part of the Working Group until 1983; the instinct runs so deep that these dogs have been known to gently herd their owners, especially the children.

Which basic command is usually taught by lifting a treat from a dog's nose up over its head?

Sit: as the dog lifts its head to follow the treat, its back end drops to the ground, and a sitting dog cannot jump up on visitors at the same time.

Who first domesticated dogs from wolves?

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers domesticated dogs from wolves long before farming began; the Bonn-Oberkassel dog was buried beside two humans about 14,000 years ago.

What is the technical term for the fertile phase of a female dog's cycle, commonly called being 'in heat'?

Estrus follows proestrus, when the eggs mature and oestrogen rises; most dogs come into heat about twice a year, though giant breeds may cycle only once.

Which breed did Stanley Coren rank as the most intelligent in his book The Intelligence of Dogs?

In The Intelligence of Dogs (1994), Stanley Coren ranked the Border Collie first after asking obedience-trial judges to rate breeds on working and obedience intelligence; the Afghan Hound came bottom.

Which compound is the leading suspect behind a common dried fruit's kidney toxicity in dogs?

Tartaric acid is the leading suspect: vets have reported the same kidney signs in dogs that ate cream of tartar or tamarinds, both rich in it, as in dogs that ate the fruit itself.

Which breed serves both the US Secret Service and the Israel Defense Forces' Oketz Unit?

The Belgian Malinois is prized by police and special forces for its speed and drive; one named Cairo went with the Navy SEALs on the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Which breed did a Thuringian tax collector create around 1890 as a guard dog for his rounds?

The Doberman Pinscher is named after Louis Dobermann, a tax collector in Apolda who also worked as the town dog catcher, which gave him plenty of dogs to breed from.

What is a dog signalling when it lowers its front end while keeping its rear up?

It is inviting a game: the play bow also signals that whatever follows, such as a mock charge or a growl, is not meant as aggression.

Which breed, namesake of a Louisiana parish, became an official state symbol there in 1979?

The Catahoula Leopard Dog, Louisiana's state dog, is known for its mottled merle coat; though registries class it as a herder, it was traditionally used to hunt wild hogs.

What is the name of the dog in Pixar's Up whose collar translates his thoughts?

Dug is a Golden Retriever from a pack of dogs whose collars turn their thoughts into speech; their master turns out to be the film's villain, the old explorer Charles Muntz.

Which inherited condition of large breeds leaves a joint's ball and socket fitting so poorly that arthritis follows?

Hip dysplasia: the ball and socket rub and grind instead of sliding smoothly, making it the most common single cause of hip arthritis in dogs; keeping a growing puppy lean lowers the risk.

Which naturalist assigned the genus name Canis to the dog, wolf and golden jackal in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus set up Canis in the 1758 edition of Systema Naturae, and his version of the genus also held the red fox and the striped hyena, which later zoologists moved elsewhere.

Which Poodle size variety is the largest?

Standard is the largest Poodle size: the big dogs were used by wildfowlers to retrieve shot birds from water, while the smaller varieties were once common circus performers.

The firehouse-dog breed shares its name with a region of which modern country?

Croatia: the breed's name points to the country's Adriatic coast, though it was in England that it became the coach dog of the wealthy, trotting beside their carriages.

Tia, who set a world record by giving birth to 24 puppies, was which wrinkled Italian breed?

Neapolitan Mastiff: Tia's 24 puppies were delivered by caesarean in Cambridgeshire in November 2004; one was stillborn and three died in the first week, leaving 20 survivors.

The Kangal, a livestock guardian named after a town in Sivas Province, is a breed of which country?

Turkey: Kangals guard flocks against wolves around Sivas, and since 1994 a cheetah charity in Namibia has placed them with farmers so that livestock, and the cats, are spared.

A dog's front dewclaws sit on the inside of the leg, in the position of which human digit?

The thumb: a dog's front dewclaw sits where a thumb would, and because it does not usually touch the ground its nail is not worn down and needs regular trimming.

Which president defended his Scottish Terrier, Fala, in a famous campaign speech?

Fala was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Scottish Terrier; in his 1944 'Fala speech' Roosevelt mocked Republican claims that he had sent a destroyer to fetch the dog, and Fala was later buried near him at Hyde Park.

Which sled dog race across Alaska, run each March, bills itself as the 'Last Great Race on Earth'?

The Iditarod runs from Anchorage to the Bering Sea coast; it was first held in 1973, after snowmobiles had almost driven dog sledding out of use in rural Alaska.

Max von Stephanitz's working breed is known in Britain by what alternative name?

Alsatian, after the Alsace-Lorraine border region, was the name the UK Kennel Club used from 1919, when anything German was a hard sell, until it restored 'German Shepherd Dog' in 1977.

A study found dogs' visual acuity to be up to how many times less effective than a human's?

Eight: dogs' visual acuity has been measured at up to eight times worse than a human's, while their brightness discrimination is only about twice as poor; what they lack in eyesight they recover in nose and ears.

The Pug dog breed, known for its distinctive wrinkled face and curled tail, originated in which country?

Pugs were bred in China as companions for the imperial court; Dutch traders carried them to Europe in the sixteenth century, the House of Orange adopted them, and Queen Victoria later kept many.

The miniature version of the German 'badger dog' was bred to hunt which small animal?

Rabbits: the miniature variety was bred down in size to follow rabbits into their warrens, while the standard size was built to go after badgers underground.

Which Greek hero comes home disguised as a beggar but is recognised at once by his old dog Argos?

Odysseus had been gone twenty years; Argos, too weak to reach him, dropped his ears and wagged his tail, and his master had to hide a tear to keep his disguise.

A 2015 study found which hormone rises in both dog and owner when they gaze into each other's eyes?

Oxytocin: the study found a loop in which a dog's gaze raised the hormone in its owner, whose attention then raised it in the dog; wolves did not trigger it.

The phrase 'hair of the dog' describes a supposed cure for what?

A hangover: the saying is short for 'the hair of the dog that bit you', from an old folk remedy that laid some of the biting dog's hair on the wound.

What is the scientific name for the domestic dog?

Canis familiaris is the dog's own species name; many biologists instead write Canis lupus familiaris, treating the dog as a subspecies of the grey wolf, its nearest living relative.

Which size of dog tends to live the longest?

Small breeds typically live 10 to 15 years; large breeds seem to pay for growing so fast by ageing more quickly, and giant breeds have the shortest lives.

Heartworm passes from dog to dog through the bite of which pest?

Mosquitoes pick up heartworm larvae when they bite an infected dog and pass them on at a later bite; the adult worms, about a foot long, lodge in the heart and lung arteries.

Which terrier is named after the Devon parson who bred it for fox hunting?

Jack Russell Terrier: the Reverend John 'Jack' Russell is said to have bought a white-and-tan terrier bitch called Trump from a milkman while a student at Oxford, and bred his fox-hunting line from her.

Which sled-dog breed did Alaska adopt as its official state dog in 2010?

Alaska named the Alaskan Malamute its state dog in 2010 after a campaign begun by a kindergarten pupil three years earlier; the freighting breed is named for the Malimiut Inupiaq people.

The term 'brachycephalic' refers to dog breeds characterized by what physical feature?

Brachycephalic means a short, broad skull and flat face, as in Pugs; the squashed airways leave such dogs struggling to breathe after exercise and prone to overheating in hot weather.

Scent-tracking breeds such as the Beagle are famous for which deep, prolonged vocalisation?

Baying is the deep, booming voice a scent-tracking dog uses when excited on a trail, which tells the hunter following behind that the pack is on the scent.

Which of these breeds can be born with a natural bobtail?

The Australian Shepherd can be born with a naturally bobbed tail; despite its name, the breed was developed in western American states such as California to work sheep.

Which Disney dog is Mickey Mouse's pet?

Pluto is an ordinary pet dog, unlike Goofy, who was conceived as a human-like character who walks upright and talks; Pluto first appeared in 1930 and was briefly called Rover.

Which 2011 Australian film tells the true story of a Kelpie cross who roamed the Pilbara mining towns?

Red Dog, played by a dog called Koko, is based on a real dog who wandered Western Australia's Pilbara in the 1970s; a statue at Dampier remembers him.

Lean, long-legged breeds like the Borzoi and Whippet belong to which hunting group?

Sighthounds, also called gazehounds, hunt by sight and speed rather than scent; the Borzoi, Whippet and Saluki all carry an unusually large heart inside a deep chest to fuel the sprint.

At the top of the range for dogs, some breeds have roughly how many smell-sensitive receptors?

Nearly 300 million in the keenest-nosed breeds, and more than 100 million even in the rest; that sensitivity is why dogs can be trained to sniff out explosives and drugs.

Buck, a ranch pet stolen and sold as a Klondike sled dog, is the hero of which Jack London novel?

The Call of the Wild (1903) follows Buck from a sunny Santa Clara Valley ranch to the Yukon; London's White Fang mirrors it, taking a wild wolfdog into a human home.

In which 1957 Disney film must a Texas farm boy shoot his beloved dog after it catches rabies?

Old Yeller, a stray mongrel, earns his place by saving the Coates family from a bear, wild hogs and a rabid wolf; that last fight infects him, and young Travis has to shoot him.

In 1960, which pair of Soviet dogs became the first animals to return safely from orbit?

Belka and Strelka flew on Korabl-Sputnik 2 on 19 August 1960 and came back alive after a day in orbit, a rehearsal for the Vostok craft that carried Yuri Gagarin the following year.

Where a human brain is dominated by a large visual region, a dog's brain is dominated by which region?

The olfactory cortex: smell so rules a dog's brain that a trained nose can pick out some odours at parts per trillion, which is why dogs are used to find explosives, drugs and even cancers.

In the trademark 'His Master's Voice', what is the dog Nipper listening to?

A gramophone, though Francis Barraud first painted Nipper at a cylinder phonograph: the Gramophone Company bought the picture only after he painted its own machine over the rival's.

Which breed has served as the US Marine Corps mascot since the 1920s?

The Bulldog became the Marines' mascot in 1922, when a dog named Jiggs joined the Corps; the choice played on 'Devil Dogs', the nickname German troops are said to have given the Marines in 1918.

The African 'barkless dog' is also known by which name, after the river basin it comes from?

Congo dog is its other name: the breed comes from central Africa, and in 2010 an expedition went back to villages there to collect fresh breeding stock.

In the Peanuts comic strip, what is the name of Charlie Brown's pet dog?

Snoopy joined Peanuts two days after it began in 1950; modelled on Spike, a dog Charles Schulz had as a boy, he stayed silent until his thoughts first appeared in a balloon in 1952.

Which wrinkled Chinese breed did Guinness name the world's rarest dog in 1978?

The Shar-Pei was rescued after Hong Kong breeder Matgo Law appealed to American dog lovers in a 1973 magazine letter; imports followed, and by 1978 a US breed club was staging its own shows.

What is the technical term for a dog's whiskers, which are specialized tactile hairs?

Vibrissae grow from follicles packed with nerves and blood vessels, so the lightest touch or shift in air current registers, helping a dog feel its way around.

What is the life-threatening condition in which a dog's stomach twists on itself called?

Bloat, or gastric dilatation-volvulus, traps gas in the twisted stomach and cuts off its blood supply, so a dog needs surgery within hours to survive.

Which dog breed is famous for its blue-black tongue?

The Chow Chow's tongue is blue-black, yet its puppies are born with pink tongues that only begin to darken when they are about two months old.

What is the term for a female dog giving birth?

Whelping means giving birth to whelps, a word for puppies; breeders use a whelping box so the mother cannot crush or smother her newborns.

The racing sighthound's name is believed to derive from 'grighund' in which language?

Old English: the name comes from grīghund, a word whose 'grig' element has no known link to the colour grey, and the breed comes in a wide range of coat colours.

In which dog sport does a handler direct an off-leash dog through jumps, tunnels and weave poles?

Agility: dogs run with no food or toy lures and the handler may touch neither dog nor obstacles, so the whole course has to be steered by voice and body signals.

What does a dog's tail tucked tightly between its legs usually signal?

Fear or submission: a tail clamped between the legs marks a worried or frightened dog yielding to another, while a tail held high marks an alert, assertive one.

Which breed does the AKC describe as the tallest of all its recognised breeds?

The Irish Wolfhound is the tallest AKC breed on average, yet the tallest individual dogs ever measured have come from a different, more heavily built breed.

Which breed is generally regarded as the heaviest of all dog breeds?

The English Mastiff is the heaviest breed but not the tallest: a couple of leaner giants stand taller at the shoulder.

Which cartoon dog owns a time machine and lives in a New York penthouse?

Mr. Peabody is a genius dog who adopts a human boy, Sherman, and invents the WABAC time machine to take him through history.

What breed of dog played Toto in the classic film 'The Wizard of Oz'?

Toto was played by Terry, a female Cairn Terrier who earned $125 a week, more than many of the human cast; she spent two weeks recovering after a Winkie guard stepped on her paw.

Which sled-dog breed was first developed by the Chukchi people?

The Siberian Husky was bred by the Chukchi of northeast Asia to pull light loads at a steady pace over vast frozen distances, so it is built for endurance rather than hauling power.

What is the main way a dog cools itself down?

Panting moves air rapidly over the moist tongue, mouth and airways so that evaporation carries heat away; a furred body has too few sweat glands to cool itself by sweating.

Which of these is a general classification for dog breeds developed to manage livestock?

Collie is a general label for herding types from the Border Collie to the Rough Collie, all developed for the intelligence and instinct needed to work flocks.

Giant breeds such as the Great Dane are not fully grown until about what age?

2 years: giant breeds keep growing until about two years old, while most dogs are fully grown by 12 to 15 months; that long growth phase goes with the shortest lifespans, often under 10 years.

Which small-to-medium Hungarian breed, usually black, wears a long corded coat and works livestock?

The Puli, usually black, is the small corded Hungarian sheepdog; its much larger white cousin wears the same mop-like cords but guards the flock instead of driving it.

What does a direct, prolonged stare between two dogs usually signal?

Threat: between dogs a hard stare is a warning, and looking away is the peace-making reply; a soft gaze at a trusted human is another matter, and helps the pair bond.

Which common fruit, even in small amounts, can cause acute kidney failure in dogs?

Grapes, and raisins too, can cause sudden kidney failure in dogs; the toxin puzzled vets for years, and because even a single grape has made some dogs ill, none is considered safe.

Which African hunting breed is called the 'barkless dog', yodelling instead because of its unusually shaped larynx?

The Basenji comes into season only once a year, and it proved hard to export: early imports to England died of disease, and breeding only took hold there in the 1930s.

Which breed can hit peak speeds of roughly 43 mph (69 km/h) on a racing track?

The Greyhound owes that speed to a light, muscular build, an unusually large heart and an extremely flexible spine, which is why it is the dog chosen for track racing.

Which breed was the dog who met trains at Tokyo's Shibuya Station for nearly ten years?

The dog was an Akita; a 1932 newspaper article about his vigil made him famous across Japan, and after his death his preserved body went on display in a Tokyo science museum.

What do puppies of the spotted firehouse carriage-dog breed look like at birth?

Plain white: the pups are born with spotless coats, and the first spots only begin to show through after about ten days.

What is the North American 'wiener dog', the long-bodied German badger hound, nicknamed in Britain and Australasia?

Sausage dog is the British and Australian nickname, matching the North American 'wiener dog'; both refer to the long, low body the breed was given to follow badgers into their burrows.

Which famous American was given a puppy in Japan in 1937, the first of its breed to reach America?

Helen Keller was presented with a puppy, Kamikaze-go, on her 1937 visit; he died of distemper within months, so his brother Kenzan-go was sent to her from Japan.

Queen Elizabeth II owned more than 30 dogs of which breed during her reign?

Pembroke Welsh Corgi: the Queen bred generations of them from Susan, an 18th-birthday present in 1944 who even went along on her honeymoon.

Bo, the dog the Obama family brought to the White House in 2009, was which breed?

Bo was a Portuguese Water Dog, a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy in April 2009; the Obamas chose the low-shedding breed for Malia's allergies, and a second Portuguese Water Dog, Sunny, joined in 2013.

Which breed is the smallest of Japan's six native spitz-type breeds?

The Shiba Inu is the smallest of Japan's six native breeds; it nearly died out through wartime food shortages and later distemper outbreaks, and today's dogs descend from just three surviving bloodlines.

The 1925 serum run, a dog-sled relay carrying diphtheria antitoxin across Alaska, ended in which town?

Nome was icebound, and Alaska's only planes were open-cockpit biplanes dismantled for the winter, so 20 mushers relayed the serum 674 miles by dog sled in five and a half days.

Which breed became the AKC's most popular in its 2022 rankings, ending a decades-long reign?

The French Bulldog has English roots: Nottingham lace workers pushed out by the Industrial Revolution took their toy bulldogs to northern France, where the breed took shape.

Which droopy-faced scent hound can follow a human trail days old, which is why police use it for manhunts?

The Bloodhound follows a trail so reliably that police use it to find fugitives and missing people, and its results have been accepted as evidence in court.

Which breed's head is officially described as "egg-shaped" when seen head-on?

The Bull Terrier's egg-shaped head made a star of Spuds MacKenzie, the 'male' party dog of 1980s Bud Light ads, who was really a female named Honey Tree Evil Eye.

From which war's battlefield was Hollywood star Rin Tin Tin rescued as a puppy?

World War I: American soldier Lee Duncan found the puppy at Flirey, France, in 1918 and named him after Rintintin, a good-luck doll that French children gave to American soldiers.

How long does a dog's pregnancy last, on average?

63 days, about nine weeks, is the average; because mating and conception can be days apart, even vets find the due date hard to predict from the mating date alone.

The Poodle is often called France's national dog, but most breed historians trace it to which country?

Germany: the name comes from the German Pudelhund, roughly 'splashing dog', and most historians believe the breed began there as a retriever of waterfowl.

Which retriever breed did the Earls of Malmesbury and Dukes of Buccleuch establish in 19th-century Britain?

The Labrador Retriever was established in the 1880s after the Earl of Malmesbury gave two of his dogs to the Duke of Buccleuch, who bred them with descendants of dogs his own family had imported half a century earlier.

Which breed won the first Best in Show at America's top dog show, in 1907?

Smooth Fox Terrier: the show began as a contest for setters and pointers, but when Best in Show was added in 1907 Warren Remedy won it three years running, the only dog ever to do so.

Which big white Hungarian guardian breed wears a corded, mop-like coat?

The Komondor's heavy white cords are armour as well as insulation: the matted coat is thick enough to blunt a wolf's bite while the dog guards its flock.

Roughly how many more smell-sensitive receptors does a dog have than a human?

40 times more is the usual estimate, and the nose makes the most of them: a fold inside each nostril steers part of every breath into a separate chamber used only for smelling.

Barry, an Alpine rescue dog now preserved in a Bern museum, is credited with saving roughly how many lives?

About 40 is the figure usually credited to Barry; the legend that he died attempting a rescue is untrue, for he retired to Bern, where his body went to the natural history museum.

A sheepdog named Chaser, trained by psychologist John Pilley, learned the names of roughly how many toys?

1,000 is the nearest: Chaser learned 1,022 toy names, and could fetch a toy she had never seen by working out that an unfamiliar word must belong to it.

Which detective unmasks Dartmoor's ghostly beast as a dog daubed with phosphorus?

Sherlock Holmes solves it in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the story Arthur Conan Doyle wrote eight years after killing his detective off at the Reichenbach Falls.

Snuppy, the first cloned dog, was born in 2005 at a university in which country?

Snuppy was born in April 2005 at Seoul National University in South Korea, his name a blend of 'SNU' and 'puppy'; he was confirmed a genuine clone even after lead scientist Hwang Woo-suk's other research was exposed as fabricated.

In which country was the Golden Retriever breed developed in the late 19th century?

Scotland: Sir Dudley Marjoribanks bred the first of them at his Guisachan estate, and the stud book he kept later disproved a legend that the breed came from Russia.

Which now-extinct breed was crossed with Flat-coated Retrievers to create the Golden Retriever?

The Tweed Water Spaniel was a liver-coloured dog kept by fishermen along the River Tweed; one named Belle was mated to a yellow retriever in 1868, founding the Golden line.

Far from seeing only black and white, dogs can make out which two colours?

Blue and yellow: dogs have two types of colour-sensing cone where people have three, so reds and greens blur together, much as they do for a red-green colour-blind person.

Which sweetener, common in sugar-free gum, can send a dog's blood sugar crashing?

Xylitol makes a dog's pancreas flood the blood with insulin, so blood sugar can plunge within half an hour; in people it does not trigger insulin release at all.

What is the Golden Retriever's name in the 1993 film Homeward Bound?

Shadow, the wise old Golden Retriever voiced by Don Ameche in the last film released in his lifetime, leads the young dog Chance and the cat Sassy home across the Sierra Nevada.

What was the name of Lord Tweedmouth's yellow retriever, sire of the first Golden Retriever litter?

Nous, a yellow Flat-coated Retriever bought by Lord Tweedmouth, was mated with a liver-coloured water spaniel named Belle in 1868; their pups Crocus, Cowslip and Primrose founded the Golden Retriever line.

Which US president's Golden Retriever, Liberty, lived in the White House in the 1970s?

Liberty was Gerald Ford's Golden Retriever, a gift arranged in 1974 by his daughter Susan and White House photographer David Kennerly; she gave birth to puppies in the White House the next year.

In the 1997 film Air Bud, a Golden Retriever named Buddy plays which sport?

In Air Bud (1997) Buddy joins a middle-school basketball team; the real dog belonged to Kevin DiCicco and had already appeared on America's Funniest Home Videos, while sequels had him play football, soccer, baseball and volleyball.

Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye terrier said to have guarded his owner's grave for 14 years, has a statue in which city?

Edinburgh's Lord Provost paid for Bobby's dog licence himself in 1867 and gave him a collar; the fountain topped with his statue was unveiled the year after the dog died.

Bluey, the oldest verified dog ever at 29 years and 5 months, was which breed?

Bluey was an Australian Cattle Dog said to have worked cattle and sheep for about 20 years in Rochester, Victoria; Guinness briefly gave her record to a Portuguese dog, Bobi, then revoked it for lack of evidence.

The Rottweiler's German name Metzgerhund describes it as whose dog?

Metzgerhund means 'butchers' dog': the dogs of the free city of Rottweil herded livestock and pulled butchers' carts of meat to market until railways replaced droving in the mid-1800s.

Charles Cruft, founder of the Crufts dog show, rose to general manager of a firm that made what?

Dog biscuits: selling them took Cruft to shows across Britain and Europe, which convinced him the events needed higher standards, and his own first show, in 1886, was for terriers only.

Which of Leonhard Seppala's lead dogs ran the longest, most dangerous stretch of the 1925 serum run?

Togo led Seppala's team farther than any other dog on the relay, including the perilous shortcut across Norton Sound, yet the newspapers gave the glory to the dog that ran the final leg.

In 2008 a dog named Uno became the first of which breed to win Best in Show at America's top dog show?

Uno the Beagle won in 2008: Beagles had topped America's registrations through the 1950s yet none had ever taken the title, and Uno became the first champion invited to the White House to celebrate.

Nana, a dog who works as the children's nursemaid, appears in which classic story?

Peter Pan: after Mr Darling ties Nana up in the yard on the night the children fly away, he punishes himself by living in her kennel until they come home.

Which singer's scat line in 'Strangers in the Night' inspired the name of the cartoon dog Scooby-Doo?

Frank Sinatra sang 'doo-be-doo-be-doo' as the song faded out, and CBS programming chief Fred Silverman turned those syllables into a name for both the dog and the show.

Which Atlantic island group probably takes its name from the Latin for 'Islands of the Dogs'?

The Canaries were Canariae Insulae to the Romans, and dogs still stand on the islands' coat of arms. The songbird is named after the islands, not the reverse.

Only three of the twelve dogs aboard Titanic survived: a Pekingese and two of which fluffy toy breed?

Pomeranian owners Margaret Hays and Elizabeth Rothschild each carried a dog small enough to take into a lifeboat. The larger dogs in the ship's kennels were all lost.

Which stray dog became the first animal to orbit Earth, aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957?

Laika was never expected to survive: no way of bringing a capsule back from orbit existed yet, and she died of overheating within hours of launch.

In Disney's Old Yeller, the title dog has to be shot after a wolf bite gives him which disease?

Rabies, called hydrophobia in the film, reaches Old Yeller when he fights off a wolf to protect his owners, and young Travis has to shoot his own dog.

In 1966 a dog named Pickles sniffed out which stolen trophy, wrapped in newspaper beside a parked London car?

The World Cup, then the Jules Rimet Trophy, had been stolen from a London stamp exhibition a week earlier. Pickles was invited to England's victory banquet as a reward.

Which star, the brightest in the night sky, is nicknamed the Dog Star and gave us the 'dog days' of summer?

Sirius leads the constellation of the Greater Dog, and the ancient Greeks thought its rays made dogs behave strangely during the hottest days of the year.

A floor mosaic warning 'cave canem', or 'beware of the dog', greets visitors to a house in which Roman city?

Pompeii's House of the Tragic Poet shows a leashed, chained dog on its entrance floor, with the two-word warning spelled out beneath the animal.

In Disney's Lady and the Tramp, which breed is Lady, the pampered pet who shares spaghetti with a stray?

Cocker Spaniel Lady began with a real pet: Disney storyman Joe Grant pitched the idea in 1937 after his own spaniel, also called Lady, was pushed aside by a new baby.

Dogs are not fully colour-blind: with two kinds of cone cell they see greys, blues and which other colour?

Yellow and blue are the hues a dog sees best. Humans have three kinds of cone, and with only two a dog struggles to tell red from green.

In C. M. Coolidge's paintings, commissioned in 1903 to advertise cigars, dogs sit round a table playing what?

Poker gave the series its nickname, Dogs Playing Poker. In one of the best-known scenes, A Friend in Need, a dog slips an ace under the table to the player beside him.

In a hit 1990s comedy film, a huge slobbering dog is named after barking along to which composer's Fifth Symphony?

Beethoven gets his name when one of the children, Emily, plays the symphony on the piano. John Hughes co-wrote the script under the pen name Edmond Dantès.

Krypto, a white dog who fights crime in a miniature red cape, is the pet of which DC superhero?

Superman's dog was born on Krypton like his master. When Krypto wants to pass as an ordinary pet on Earth, he pulls off his collar and cape.

Ivan Pavlov famously trained dogs to do what at the sound of a metronome, before any food had appeared?

Salivate was the response, because the sound had come to mean dinner. Pavlov first noticed the effect when his dogs drooled at the mere sight of the technician who fed them.

Which politician's televised 1952 'Checkers speech' took its name from a pet dog he vowed his children would keep?

Richard Nixon, a senator accused over a campaign fund, said the black-and-white dog was the one gift he would not give back. The broadcast kept him on the ticket as vice-presidential nominee.

Which fur-loving Disney villain, first created by novelist Dodie Smith, plots to turn 99 spotted puppies into coats?

Cruella de Vil buys 84 of the puppies and steals the other 15 from Pongo and Perdita in the Disney films. Her name puns on 'cruel devil', and her country house is nicknamed Hell Hall.

In Greek myth, which three-headed dog guards the gates of the underworld to stop the dead from leaving?

Cerberus had a serpent for a tail and a two-headed brother. Dragging him up into the daylight is usually counted as the last of the twelve labours of Heracles.

Which board game's classic metal tokens include a Scottie dog alongside a top hat and a battleship?

Monopoly put its Scottie to a public test in 2013. When fans voted on the tokens, the iron was retired and a cat took its place beside the dog.

Which explorer reached the South Pole first, in 1911, relying on skis and teams of Greenland sled dogs?

Roald Amundsen took 42 dogs up to the polar plateau and sent only 18 on to the Pole. The other 24 were killed there for food, a step he had built into his plan.

Abraham Lincoln's dog, left behind in Springfield during his presidency, bore which name, later a cliché for any pet?

Fido stayed in Springfield with a new keeper, and Lincoln left behind the dog's favourite old sofa along with orders that he never be scolded for tracking mud indoors.

On the sitcom Frasier, which terrier owned by Martin Crane unsettles Frasier with long, hard stares?

Eddie was played by a dog named Moose, whose fixed stare at Kelsey Grammer became a running gag. Sardine oil dabbed on the actors' faces got him to lick them.

Which animated sitcom features Brian, a talking pet dog who drinks dry martinis and writes novels nobody buys?

Family Guy's Brian finally gets a novel into print in one episode, Faster Than the Speed of Love, and it fails to sell a single copy.

Which Hanna-Barbera cartoon features Astro, a talking dog who begins every word with a growly 'R' sound?

The Jetsons gave Astro that growl in 1962, and the same trick was later used for Scooby-Doo. Voice actor Don Messick played both dogs.

Which long-running British science-fiction series introduced a robot dog called K9 in 1977?

Doctor Who meant K9 as a one-off but kept him on because he was expected to be popular with younger viewers. His name is a pun on 'canine'.

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, what is the name of Jack Skellington's floating ghost dog?

Zero drifts along behind Jack wherever he goes, and his nose, a tiny glowing jack-o'-lantern, doubles as a bright light.

Which 2008 Disney film follows a dog, raised on a TV set, who believes his superpowers are real?

Bolt has spent his whole life on the set, where the director rigs every effect so that he never learns he is acting. John Travolta provides his voice.

Which Stephen King novel traps a mother and son in a broken-down Ford Pinto besieged by a huge dog?

Cujo took its name from the alias of a Symbionese Liberation Army member. King, who owned a faulty Pinto himself, has said he barely remembers writing the book.

In Disney's The Fox and the Hound, which hound puppy pledges eternal friendship with Tod the fox?

Copper is voiced as an adult by Kurt Russell, who recorded all his lines in just two sessions while he was filming a TV movie about Elvis.

Which terrier, called Milou in the original French, follows the boy reporter Tintin on every adventure?

Snowy got his French name from the nickname of Hergé's first girlfriend, Marie-Louise Van Cutsem, shortened to Milou.

Which dim-witted comic-strip dog shares Jon Arbuckle's house with the lasagne-loving cat Garfield?

Odie first belonged to Jon's roommate Lyman, who moved in with a suitcase and a dog. When Lyman faded out of the strip, the dog quietly became Jon's.

Which heavy-jowled breed played Hooch, the slobbering police partner of Tom Hanks in the comedy Turner & Hooch?

The Dogue de Bordeaux became far better known after the 1989 film, in which a dog named Beasley played the only witness to a murder.

Which 2011 film made a star of Uggie, the terrier later honoured with paw prints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre?

The Artist had critics saying Uggie stole every scene, and the role won him the Palm Dog Award at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

Handsome Dan, a mascot chosen partly for his dislike of crimson and of tigers, represents which Ivy League university?

Yale has kept a line of Handsome Dans since 1889. In 2005 Handsome Dan XVI was briefly stolen by a pair of Harvard undergraduates at his first game against the old rival.

Which tiny breed was Smoky, the foxhole stray who dragged a telegraph wire through a 70-foot pipe for US troops?

Yorkshire Terrier Smoky was found by an American soldier in the New Guinea jungle in 1944, and her fame is credited with reviving interest in a then-obscure breed.

Which breed, marked by a strip of hair growing backwards along its spine, was developed to hold lions at bay?

The Rhodesian Ridgeback was never meant to attack a lion. It darted in and out with quick snaps to harass and confuse the animal until the hunter could shoot.

Which fluffy white spitz, known for its upturned 'smile', takes its name from reindeer-herding peoples of the Arctic?

The Samoyed descends from dogs that herded reindeer for the Nenets people, and its alert, happy expression is nicknamed the 'Sammie smile'.

Which long-eared, short-legged breed serves as the logo and mascot of the shoe brand Hush Puppies?

A Basset Hound named Jason fronts the brand. The breed's name comes from the French 'bas', meaning low, so a basset is literally 'rather low'.

Despite its Egyptian-sounding name, the Pharaoh Hound is a breed native to which Mediterranean country?

Malta knows it as the Kelb tal-Fenek. A 2023 genetic study of seven Mediterranean hound breeds found it the most distant of all from Egypt's street dogs.

Waldi, a striped cartoon dog, was the first official Olympic mascot, created for the 1972 Summer Games in which city?

Munich went beyond posters and toys: the course of the Olympic marathon was designed to trace Waldi's outline through the city.

Which Prussian king, who called his little dog Biche his best friend, asked to be buried beside his dogs at Sanssouci?

Frederick the Great wanted a grave on the Sanssouci vineyard terrace beside his greyhounds, but his nephew entombed him in a church. The wish was only carried out in 1991, over two centuries after his death.

The Lhasa Apso was bred as an indoor sentinel for palaces and monasteries in which Himalayan land?

Tibet's 13th Dalai Lama gave the first pair to reach the United States as a gift to the traveller Suydam Cutting, and the dogs arrived in 1933.

The Poodle's name traces back to an old word meaning to do what, a clue to its past as a duck retriever?

Splash is what the root of the name means, and the show-ring clip has the same origin: hunters shaved the coat for swimming but left the joints and vital organs covered.

Which small breed is nicknamed 'the American Gentleman' because its coat markings resemble formal wear?

Boston Terrier manners earned the nickname as much as the markings did. Almost every one alive today descends from a single dog called Judge, bought in the city by a man named Hooper.

Which Nordic breed, built to climb sea cliffs after puffins, normally has six toes on each foot?

The Norwegian Lundehund can also fold its ears shut and bend its head back along its own spine, both useful for squeezing through the rock tunnels where the birds nest.

In Britain's Kennel Club system, retrievers, setters, pointers and spaniels all belong to which breed group?

Gundog is the British label, while American registries file the same breeds under Sporting. Many of these breeds were developed to work with nets, traps and hawks rather than firearms.

Which band ended a 1967 album with a 15-kilohertz tone, the pitch of a dog whistle, at the edge of human hearing?

The Beatles tucked the tone in after the last song on Sgt. Pepper as a joke, at John Lennon's suggestion. American copies of the album were pressed without it.

In the trademark painting His Master's Voice, what is the name of the dog listening to a gramophone horn?

Nipper earned his name by nipping the backs of visitors' legs. Painter Francis Barraud first showed him with a cylinder phonograph, then swapped in a gramophone to sell the picture.

Which terrier is the only dog breed named after a fictional character, a farmer in Walter Scott's Guy Mannering?

The Dandie Dinmont took the name after Scott's 1815 novel made the farmer and his terriers famous. He called them all Pepper or Mustard, still the terms for the breed's two coat colours.

The Coton de Tuléar, a small white dog named for its cotton-like coat, is the national breed of which island?

Madagascar put the Coton on a postage stamp in 1974 as its 'royal dog'. The breed's ancestors may have come ashore from pirate ships, and it became the companion of the ruling Merina.

Which curly-coated Italian water retriever was turned into a truffle hunter after the Po Delta marshes were drained?

The Lagotto Romagnolo was bred to fetch shot game from the lagoons around Comacchio. When the wetlands were drained, its nose was put to work finding fungi underground instead.