46 Fun Facts About Dogs Trivia for Seniors

Lassie, the loyal star of film and television, is what breed of dog?

Rough Collie Lassie is female, but the part in the 1943 film Lassie Come Home went to a male dog named Pal.

Which boy became Lassie's young master in the TV show's fourth season?

Timmy arrived as an orphan taken in by Lassie's first family, the Millers, and stayed on the farm with the dog when they moved away.

Rin Tin Tin, the silent-film star, was what breed?

German Shepherd Rin Tin Tin was rescued from a wartime battlefield by a soldier, Lee Duncan, and his hit films went on to make the breed a hugely popular family pet.

In Disney's 1957 tear-jerker Old Yeller, which disease forces young Travis to shoot the dog he loves?

Rabies, which the film calls hydrophobia, reaches Old Yeller when he fights off an infected wolf to protect the family, so Travis has to shoot his own dog.

Toto in The Wizard of Oz was played by a female dog of what breed?

Cairn Terrier Terry earned $125 a week as Toto, more than many of the film's human actors, and the part made her so famous that her name was officially changed to Toto.

Fala, the famous White House dog of the 1940s, belonged to which president?

Franklin D. Roosevelt turned a rumor that he had sent a Navy destroyer back to fetch Fala into a 1944 campaign joke, saying the charge had left the dog's 'Scotch soul' furious.

Which vice-presidential candidate saved his place on the 1952 ticket with a TV speech about a gift dog named Checkers?

Richard Nixon, under fire over gifts from his backers, said the one he would never give back was the puppy his six-year-old daughter Tricia had named Checkers, and he kept his place on the ticket.

Millie, the White House dog who 'wrote' a bestselling book, belonged to which first couple?

George and Barbara Bush's dog 'dictated' Millie's Book to the First Lady, a dog's-eye account of a day in the White House that went to No. 1 on the national nonfiction bestseller list.

Snoopy of the Peanuts comic strip is what breed of dog?

Beagle Snoopy joined the strip two days after it began; Charles Schulz drew him from memories of Spike, a dog he had as a boy, and only later let readers see his thoughts.

Which Disney dog made his 1930 debut in The Chain Gang, nameless and chasing an escaped prisoner, Mickey Mouse?

Pluto was next cast as Minnie's pet, under the name Rover, and only the following year did he become Mickey's own dog with the name that stuck.

Huckleberry Hound's cartoon made history in 1960 as the first animated series to win what?

An Emmy Award went to Huckleberry Hound's show, and one of its supporting acts, Yogi Bear, proved so popular that he was given a series of his own in 1961.

Marmaduke, the comic-strip dog drawn by Brad Anderson from 1954, is what breed?

Great Dane Marmaduke has run in newspapers since 1954, and Brad Anderson, later joined on the strip by his son Paul, found that readers wrote in about him as if he were a real dog.

Nipper, the dog listening to a gramophone in the painting His Master's Voice, became the trademark of which American record company?

RCA Victor inherited Nipper from the Victor Talking Machine Company; painter Francis Barraud had first shown him with a cylinder phonograph and repainted it as a gramophone to make the sale.

In Disney's Lady and the Tramp, Lady is what breed of dog?

Cocker Spaniel Lady arrives as a Christmas puppy in a hatbox, a scene taken from life: Walt Disney had once surprised his wife Lillian with a puppy in just the same way.

In Disney's The Shaggy Dog (1959), what turns teenager Wilby into a sheepdog?

A cursed ring of the Borgias does it when Wilby repeats its Latin inscription; the hit was Disney's first live-action comedy and set the pattern for many more.

Higgins, the dog who first played Benji in 1974, came to his trainer from where?

An animal shelter in Burbank is where trainer Frank Inn picked him out; Higgins spent years on TV's Petticoat Junction before coming out of retirement to play Benji.

Big Mama Thornton recorded 'Hound Dog' first, but whose 1956 version topped the pop chart for 11 weeks?

Elvis Presley took his version from a Las Vegas lounge act, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, keeping the comic, cleaned-up lyrics they had written in place of Thornton's originals.

Which little terrier is said to have guarded his master's grave in an Edinburgh churchyard for 14 years?

Greyfriars Bobby so touched the city that in 1867 its Lord Provost paid for his license, sparing him the fate of unlicensed dogs, and the engraved collar he was given is still on show in a museum there.

Laika, the first animal to orbit the Earth in 1957, was launched by which country?

The Soviet Union picked Laika from Moscow's strays, reckoning street dogs were already hardened to cold and hunger, and launched her on Sputnik 2 knowing she could not be brought back.

The medicine that Balto's team rushed through an Alaskan blizzard in 1925 was needed to fight which disease?

Diphtheria was killing children in an icebound town, so the antitoxin went by train as far as the rails ran and then nearly 700 miles by dog relay, with Balto leading the last team in.

Hachiko, the dog who waited nearly ten years at a Tokyo station for his late master, was what breed?

Akita Hachiko kept returning to Shibuya Station after Professor Ueno died in 1925, and he was still alive to attend the unveiling of his own bronze statue there in 1934.

Sergeant Stubby, often called the most decorated dog of World War I, served with American troops in which country?

France is where Stubby landed after a soldier smuggled him aboard a troopship under an overcoat; he warned his regiment of gas attacks and is said to have held an enemy soldier by the seat of his pants.

Which lead dog ran the longest, most dangerous leg of the 1925 serum run, though Balto got the fame?

Togo, 12 years old, led Leonhard Seppala's team on a 91-mile leg that cut across the cracking sea ice of Norton Sound in a gale; Balto's team only carried the serum over the final stretch.

Barry and the Alps' other rescue dogs are famously pictured wearing what around their necks?

A brandy keg is mostly legend: the hospice monks deny their dogs wore them, and the image was spread by an 1820 painting by a teenage English artist who added the cask himself.

Buddy, brought from Switzerland by Morris Frank in 1928, made which working dogs famous in America?

Guide dogs for the blind were little known in America until Frank showed reporters how Buddy steered him across a dangerous city street; the school he co-founded, The Seeing Eye, still trains them.

Which Russian scientist trained dogs to salivate at a signal, discovering classical conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov was really studying digestion, the work that won him the 1904 Nobel Prize, when his dogs' habit of drooling before any food arrived led him to conditioned reflexes.

The name Dachshund means what in German?

Badger dog is the literal meaning, from German Dachs (badger) and Hund (dog): the long, low body was bred to follow a badger right down into its burrow.

The Poodle, once a duck-retrieving water dog, takes its name from a German word meaning what?

To splash is the sense of German pudeln, which gave Pudelhund; even the fancy haircut began as a hunter's trim that let the dog swim freely while keeping its chest and joints warm.

Which breed is famous for following a human scent trail even days later?

Bloodhound noses are trusted enough that the trails they follow have been accepted as evidence in court, and the dogs have been known to work a scent 300 hours old.

Which is the smallest recognized dog breed in the world?

Chihuahuas are thought to descend from the Techichi, a small dog the Aztecs sacrificed when a noble died, in the belief that it would lead its owner through the afterlife.

Which large breed has webbed feet and is famous for water rescues?

Newfoundland fishermen kept the dogs aboard as working crew, hauling nets and pulling people from the water, helped by a thick, water-resistant double coat.

Which African breed is known as the 'barkless dog' because it makes a yodel-like sound instead?

Basenji 'barks' come out as a yodel because of an unusually flat larynx, and the oddities do not stop there: females come into season only once a year, as wild dogs do.

Which breed's tongue is blue-black?

Chow Chow puppies are born with ordinary pink tongues that darken to blue-black as they grow, and only one other breed, the Chinese Shar-Pei, is required to have the same coloring.

Which breed does the American Kennel Club call the tallest of all its breeds?

Irish Wolfhound is the club's pick, yet the tallest single dog ever measured came from a different giant: Zeus of Michigan, who stood 44 inches at the shoulder in 2011.

Bluey, the oldest dog ever verified at 29 years, belonged to which Australian breed?

Australian Cattle Dog Bluey lived in Victoria from 1910 to 1939; in 2023 Guinness handed her record to a Portuguese dog said to be 30, then withdrew it when his age could not be proved.

Which US president's family dog, Bo, was a Portuguese Water Dog?

Barack Obama had promised his daughters a puppy after the campaign; Bo arrived in 2009 as a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy, a low-shedding breed chosen with Malia's allergies in mind.

Roughly how many teeth does a grown dog have?

Puppies start with 28 baby teeth, and the adult jaw is built for eating meat.

Dogs mostly cool themselves by panting and by sweating through which part of the body?

The paws hold the sweat glands that work like ours, tucked into the pads, which is why an overheated dog can leave damp paw prints; panting still does most of the cooling.

Dogs do not see only black and white, so which two colors do they see best?

Blue and yellow are what a dog's two kinds of color-sensing cones pick up, so reds and greens fade toward gray and brown, much as they do for a red-green color-blind person.

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, first held in 1877, is traditionally staged in which American city?

New York gave the show its name as well as its home: the founders were sporting gentlemen who met in the bar of Manhattan's Westminster Hotel to drink and boast about their shooting.

Crufts, the world's largest dog show, is held in which country?

United Kingdom dog lovers owe the show to Charles Cruft, who started as an office boy at a dog-biscuit maker and went on to stage the first show under his own name in 1891.

The Iditarod sled dog race, held every March, runs from Anchorage to which town?

Nome ends a course of about 1,000 miles that partly follows old dogsled mail trails; Joe Redington helped launch the race when snowmobiles had nearly driven dog teams out of Alaskan life.

Which explorers took along a dog named Seaman, the only animal to complete their trip to the Pacific and back?

Lewis and Clark's dog cost $20 and earned it: he stood guard against bears at night and once drove off a buffalo charging through the sleeping camp.

Eddie, the scene-stealing dog on the sitcom Frasier, was first played by a Jack Russell Terrier named what?

Moose made a running gag of staring down Kelsey Grammer; as he aged, his son Enzo shared the part and then took over as Eddie.

Which 1992 comedy starred Charles Grodin as a father whose family adopts a huge, slobbering Saint Bernard?

Beethoven gets his name when he barks along as the family's daughter plays the Fifth Symphony on the piano; John Hughes co-wrote the script under the pen name Edmond Dantès.

Buck, the dog stolen from a California ranch in The Call of the Wild, was created by which author?

Jack London wrote from experience: at 21 he sailed north to join the Klondike gold rush, and what he saw in the Yukon fed the novel he published in 1903.