Fun facts about animals pet owners will love
October is the month to celebrate the strange and unusual – and that applies to pets too! Here are 5 fun facts about pets to make you love your quirky feline and canine companions even more:
- We all know that petting our dog, or sitting with our purring cat in our lap makes us feel good, but here’s an interesting fact about pets and human health – it may actually be good for your mental well-being! Studies have shown that’s because it releases oxytocin in your brain, the feel-good hormone. So be sure to spend quality time with your fur-babies every day – it’s good for you both!
- Dogs have incredibly keen senses of smell because they have 25x more smell receptors than humans. Their wet noses help to heighten their sense of smell and allow them to absorb scents better. Pet facts and statistics have shown that as a result of their keen sense of smell:
- Dogs can smell changes in their human’s feelings – When our anxiety level increases, we begin to perspire more, and while it may not be noticeable to us, our dog can smell the difference from our regular everyday odor.
- Because of their enhanced sense of smell, dogs can be trained to detect cancer, diabetes, and other diseases in humans. Cancerous cells release different metabolic wastes than healthy cells, which causes changes to the pH in our breath. Changes in blood sugar can also be detected in a person’s breath, which dogs can smell. Diabetes assist dogs are trained to take it one step further – when they detect a change in their owners pH, they alert their human companion so they can adjust their insulin level, thus saving lives.
- Here’s one that tops our list of fun facts about pets – have you ever waited an exceptionally long time for your doggo to find the right place to “do his business”? According to an article from PBS – this is because dogs use the Earth’s magnetic field when they relieve themselves, and they prefer to go in a North-South
axis,
- Here’s an interesting fun fact about cats – Cats are clean – REALLY clean! They spend between 30% – 50% of their day grooming themselves. This is partly an effort to reduce their own scent so they can avoid predators, and hunt for prey. It’s also a way to cool down because they do not have sweat glands, promote healthy blood flow, and stay warm and dry.
- Purring is
exercise
Set aside your pet superstitions this month (no – black cats do NOT bring bad luck) and celebrate the fun facts about pets that make our fur babies a special part of our lives!
Have more fun facts about pets to share? Leave them in the comments below! We may feature them in our social media (and we’ll be sure to give you and your fur baby all the credit!)
Sources:
https://www.doghealth.com/behavior/how-and-why/1994-how-dogs-sense-emotions
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/dogs-poop-in-alignment-with-earths-magnetic-field-study-finds
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-cats-purr/
https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/can-dogs-sniff-out-cancer/