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Doggy miscellany and trivia
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Note these two happy representatives of one common
mixed-breed color pattern, the black-and-tan dog with white
accents. Photographed at Pratt's Wayne Woods off-leash
dog park.
With a holiday weekend coming up, you, my readers, deserve some frivolity. So here you can find an assortment of interestingly miscellaneous facts about dogs. Good conversation starters at the weekend cookout, perhaps.
Dachshunds, the smallest breed of dog used for hunting, stand low to the ground on their short legs. (Miniature dachshunds stand even lower! But I doubt many of them actually join a hunt.) Their low stance allows dachshunds to enter and maneuver through tunnels easily. The name comes from one of the breed’s earliest uses—hunting badgers. In German, Dachs means "badger," and Hund is "hound" or dog.
Greyhounds, developed in ancient Egypt, had reached England by the ninth century, where they were known as gaze hounds or sight hounds—dogs that hunt primarily by sight rather than by scent. English aristocrats bred them to hunt small game, such as hares. Many English Crusaders were shown on their tombs with their feet on a dog, to indicate that they followed the standard of God as faithfully as a dog follows its master.
Pekingese dogs, sacred to the emperors of China for more than 2,000 years, are one of the oldest breeds of dogs for which we have written records of their existence. The Chinese were apparently the first to breed very small companion dogs … mostly for the emperors, it seems.
By the way, speaking of breeds, “mixed breeds" and "cross breeds" are not the same. Mixed breed dogs have more than one breed in one or both parents. And a lineage that most likely owes more to guesswork than documentation. Crossbred dogs have parents of different breeds, both known. Some crosses are common and popular enough to have nicknames, like the labradoodle (lab-poodle cross). Mixed breed dogs are less likely to suffer from recessive genetic diseases and disabilities than purebred dogs.
Dogs have featured prominently in the US White House over the centuries, as noted in White House pets: mostly dogs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt' had more than most. His most famous canine companion, Scottish terrier Fala, helped reignite a popular fashion for Scotties as pets and in decorative elements during the 1930s and 40s. Fala even appears on the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. But during the 12 years and one month FDR served as president, 11 dogs lived in the White House. Besides Fala, FDR had a another Scottie, a bullmastiff, two red setters, a retriever, a bulldog, a Llewellyn setter, a great Dane, a sheepdog, and a German shepherd who tried to rip the pants off the British Prime Minister.
Finally, prairie dogs are not dogs, they are rodents. Hunted by black-footed ferrets. But that’s another story, and more about wild animals than pets.
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