🐕 The Very Good Dog Page

What this page is

This is a handbook for people who like dogs more than is strictly reasonable. It covers the boring useful parts (vaccine timing, tooth brushing, what to do when your dog eats a sock) and the fun parts (names, facts, the Doge meme, a quiz you can fail in private).

It is not veterinary advice. Your vet knows your dog; a web page does not. When this page and your vet disagree, your vet wins.

Who it is for

• People about to get their first dog and quietly panicking.
• People who already have a dog and want to do better by it.
• People who will never own a dog and just like reading about them. You are welcome here.
• People who searched for "doge" and meant the shiba. Scroll down one section.

How to read it

Top to bottom, or jump around with the contents list. Sections that hide answers or extra detail use a little triangle you can click:

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than it loves itself.

Doge: the shiba who broke the internet

If you typed "doge", you probably meant one of two things: the meme, or the Shiba Inu behind it. Both are covered.

The dog

Her name was Kabosu. She was a Japanese Shiba Inu rescued from a shuttered puppy mill in 2008 by a kindergarten teacher, Atsuko Satō, who photographed her sitting on a sofa with her paws crossed and her eyebrows doing something faintly judgemental. That photo, posted to a personal blog in 2010, became the most reproduced dog picture in history. Kabosu died in May 2024, aged eighteen.

The grammar

Doge captions are written in broken modifiers: much, very, so, and wow, attached to words that do not normally take them. The joke is the mismatch.

• much loyal
• very bark
• so fetch
• such treat
• wow

The rule of thumb: never pair a modifier with the word it actually belongs to. Very loud is not doge. Much loud is doge. So doge is doge about doge, which is allowed once per lifetime.

Shiba Inu, the actual breed

Before you get one because of the face, read this part twice.

A shiba is a cat-shaped commitment in a dog-shaped body. People who love them love them enormously. People who wanted a golden retriever with a curly tail are usually unhappy within a month.

Breeds, group by group

Breed groups are a rough sorting system based on the job a dog was bred to do. The job still shows up in your living room a hundred years later. A herding dog with nothing to herd will herd your children; a terrier with no rats will find something else to kill.

The quick table

Sporting dogs

Bred to find birds, flush them, and bring them back without chewing. The result is a dog that wants a job, loves water, and will carry a shoe around as a substitute duck.

• Retrievers — soft mouths, endless optimism, a talent for eating things they shouldn't.
• Spaniels — busy, affectionate, need their ears checked weekly.
• Pointers and setters — built for running all day across a field. A city block does not count.

Hounds

Two sub-types with almost nothing in common.

Scent hounds (beagle, basset, bloodhound)

Follow a nose that outranks their hearing. Recall training is a lifelong negotiation. Many are loud by design — a beagle's bay was meant to be heard across a valley.

Sight hounds (greyhound, whippet, saluki, borzoi)

Built to chase what they see, at speed, then sleep for eighteen hours. Famously lazy at home and famously impossible to recall once something small and fast moves.

Working dogs

Guarding, hauling, pulling, rescuing. Big, strong, often wary of strangers by design. These dogs need training from a competent adult, not because they are dangerous by nature, but because a 50 kg animal with poor manners is a different problem from a 5 kg one.

Terriers

Bred to go into holes and kill things. Brave out of all proportion to their size, and rarely interested in your opinion. Terriers dig, terriers bark, terriers do not back down. This is not a training failure; it is the product working as specified.

Toy dogs

Bred for company, which is a real job. The commonest mistake with a toy breed is skipping training because the dog is small — then living with a ten-year-old dog that bites the vet. Small dogs need the same manners as big ones.

Herding dogs

The intellectual athletes. Border collies, Australian shepherds, kelpies, corgis, German shepherds. They read your body language better than your relatives do. Without a job they invent one, and their inventions involve your ankles, your bicycle, or the vacuum cleaner.

Non-sporting and everything else

The drawer where the kennel clubs put the dogs that fit nowhere: poodles, bulldogs, dalmatians, chow chows, shibas. No shared traits beyond a shared lack of category.

Bringing home a puppy

The first two weeks set the tone for the next fifteen years. Go slow. A tired, overwhelmed puppy learns nothing except that the world is loud.

Before the puppy arrives

1. Puppy-proof at floor level. Get on your hands and knees and look. Cables, shoes, the gap behind the fridge, that one screw under the sofa.
2. Decide the house rules with everyone who lives there. Sofa or no sofa. Bed or no bed. Whatever you pick, pick it once.
3. Set up a crate or pen in a room where people actually spend time, not a spare room at the end of the hall.
4. Book the first vet appointment for the first few days, before anything is wrong.
5. Find a training class and book it now — good puppy classes fill up weeks ahead.
6. Buy food from the breeder or shelter's brand. Change it slowly later, not on day one.

The first 48 hours

• No visitors. None. The puppy has just lost its entire family; your friends can wait a week.
• Carry it out to the same patch of grass every hour or so, wait, and throw a party when it goes.
• Expect crying at night. A crate beside your bed for the first nights usually beats a soundproofed kitchen.
• Let it sleep. Puppies need 18–20 hours a day, and an overtired puppy turns into a small land shark.

The socialisation window

Between roughly 3 and 16 weeks, a puppy's brain is set up to file new things as normal. After that window closes, novelty starts to register as threat. This period is more important than any obedience command you will ever teach.

The goal is not lots of experiences. It is lots of good experiences, at a distance the puppy is comfortable with, ending before it gets overwhelmed.

House training

There is no trick. There is only frequency, timing and patience.

• Take the puppy out after waking, after eating, after playing, and every 45–90 minutes otherwise.
• Same door, same spot, same word.
• Reward outdoors, within two seconds of finishing. Not when you get back inside — that rewards coming inside.
• Accidents indoors: clean with an enzymatic cleaner. Ammonia-based cleaners smell like urine to a dog and mark the spot as a toilet.
• Never punish an accident you did not see happen. The dog will not connect it; it will only learn to hide from you.
• Rough guide to bladder control in hours: age in months plus one. A three-month-old puppy gets about four hours, and less when awake and busy.

Biting, chewing and the land shark phase

Puppies explore with their mouths and it hurts. This peaks around 8–16 weeks and then fades if you handle it well.

1. When teeth touch skin, stop the fun. Stand up, turn away, count to ten, come back.
2. Keep a chew toy within reach at all times and redirect onto it.
3. Check whether the puppy is simply overtired. Nine times out of ten, the answer is a nap in the crate, not more training.
4. Never hold the mouth shut, tap the nose, or pin the dog. It teaches the puppy that hands are frightening.

A rough daily schedule at 10 weeks

Feeding, treats and the do-not-feed list

How much, how often

Portion sizes on the bag are a starting point and usually generous. The real measurement is the dog. You should be able to feel the ribs easily under a thin layer, see a waist from above, and see a tuck-up from the side. Over half the dogs in most surveyed countries are overweight, and their owners consistently rate them as "just right".

The 10% rule for treats

Treats should stay under about a tenth of daily calories. During heavy training weeks, take that portion out of the dog's meals rather than adding it on top. Use the dog's own kibble for easy repetitions and save the good stuff — chicken, cheese, liver — for hard things like recall.

Do not feed

If your dog eats any of these, call a vet or a pet poison line immediately. Do not wait for symptoms, and do not induce vomiting unless a professional tells you to — with some substances that makes things worse.

Usually fine in moderation

• Carrot, cucumber, green beans, courgette
• Apple and pear without seeds or core
• Blueberries, strawberries, watermelon without seeds or rind
• Plain cooked chicken, turkey, beef, white fish
• Plain cooked pumpkin and sweet potato
• Plain yoghurt and cottage cheese, if the dog tolerates dairy
• Peanut butter — check the label for xylitol first, every single time

Bloat: the emergency every big-dog owner should know

Gastric dilatation-volvulus is when the stomach fills with gas and twists. It is most common in deep-chested breeds — great danes, standard poodles, weimaraners, setters, boxers. Untreated, it kills within hours.

Signs: a swollen hard belly, restlessness and pacing, drooling, and repeated retching that brings nothing up. This is a drive-to-the-emergency-vet-right-now situation, not a wait-and-see one.

Training

Modern training runs on rewards. You mark the moment the dog gets it right and you pay for it. This is not permissiveness — it is simply the method that produces reliable behaviour fastest and without teaching the dog to fear you.

The four rules that do most of the work

1. Reward what you want, immediately. The window is about one second. Late rewards teach something else.
2. Manage the environment so mistakes are hard. A dog that cannot reach the bin never learns to raid the bin.
3. Train in short sessions. Three sessions of two minutes beats one session of ten.
4. Raise one criterion at a time. Distance, duration, distraction — never two at once.

The core commands

Common problems, briefly

Jumping up on people

Jumping is a greeting that works. Make it stop working: all attention ends when paws leave the floor, and pours in when four paws are down. Everyone in the household has to do it, including the guest who says they don't mind.

Barking at the window

Block the view with a film or move the sofa. Rehearsing a behaviour forty times a day makes it stronger; a dog cannot practise barking at what it cannot see.

Pulling towards other dogs

Increase distance until the dog can eat. If it will not take food, you are too close. Feed for looking at the other dog and then back at you.

Stealing and running

Chasing turns theft into the best game in the house. Trade instead: offer something better, take the sock calmly, give the good thing. Teach "drop" as a trade, never as a wrestle.

Separation distress

Real separation anxiety is a panic disorder, not naughtiness, and it does not improve by being ignored. Build absences in seconds, not hours, and get help from a qualified behaviourist early.

Resource guarding

Do not take things away to "show who is boss" — that confirms the dog's fear that hands remove food. Instead, walk past and drop something better into the bowl. If there is any growling near food or beds, get professional help rather than experimenting.

What not to use

Shock collars, prong collars, alpha rolls and lead corrections are marketed as fast. The research on them is consistent: they increase fear and aggression and damage the relationship, and the behaviour they suppress tends to come back. The dominance model they rest on came from a 1940s study of unrelated captive wolves and was retracted by its own author decades ago. Wild wolf packs are families, not hierarchies of bullies, and your dog is not trying to take over the house.

If your training plan requires the dog to be afraid of you, it is not a training plan.

Health and the vet

Core vaccinations, roughly

Schedules vary by country, by local disease risk and by vet. Use this as a map, not a prescription.

Parasites

• Fleas — treat all pets in the house at once, and treat the house too. Ninety-five per cent of the population is in the carpet, not on the dog.
• Ticks — check after every walk in long grass, especially ears, armpits, groin and between toes. Remove with a tick hook, twisting rather than pulling.
• Worms — roundworm, tapeworm, hookworm, whipworm. Puppies are usually wormed every two weeks until twelve weeks old.
• Heartworm — mosquito-borne, endemic in many warm regions, prevented monthly and treated with difficulty. Ask your vet whether your area needs it.

Signs that mean call the vet now

• Repeated unproductive retching with a swollen abdomen
• Difficulty breathing, blue or grey gums, collapse
• Seizure lasting more than a few minutes, or several in a row
• Straining to urinate and producing nothing — especially in male dogs
• Known ingestion of a toxin, a foreign object, or medication
• Heatstroke signs: frantic panting, staggering, bright red gums, vomiting after exercise or a hot car
• Bleeding that does not stop under pressure in five minutes
• A pale, cold, unresponsive dog
• An unspayed female, a few weeks after a season, who is drinking heavily and off her food — possible pyometra, which is life-threatening

Signs that mean book an appointment this week

• Limping that lasts more than a day or two
• Scratching that has broken the skin
• Bad breath, bleeding gums, dropping food
• Drinking noticeably more water than usual
• Weight change with no change in feeding
• Head shaking, ear odour, dark discharge
• Lumps that are new, growing, or changing
• A change in personality: a sociable dog becoming snappy is often a dog in pain

Home first-aid kit

• Sterile saline for flushing eyes and wounds
• Non-stick gauze, conforming bandage, self-adhesive wrap, blunt scissors
• Tick hook and fine tweezers
• Digital thermometer (normal canine temperature is about 38–39.2 °C)
• A spare slip lead — a panicking dog escapes a collar
• Foil blanket, disposable gloves
• Your vet's number and the nearest 24-hour clinic's address, written on paper inside the lid
• A muzzle that fits. A dog in severe pain may bite the person it loves most, and that is not a character flaw

Heat

Dogs cool themselves by panting, which stops working well in high humidity. Walk early or late in summer, press the back of your hand to the pavement for seven seconds — if you cannot hold it, neither can paws — and never leave a dog in a parked car, even with windows cracked, even for five minutes. Flat-faced dogs, black-coated dogs, overweight dogs and old dogs overheat fastest.

Grooming

Know your coat

Nails

If you can hear clicking on a hard floor, they are too long. Overgrown nails change how the dog stands and eventually cause joint pain.

• Take a sliver at a time. The quick — the blood vessel inside — recedes as the nail shortens, so frequent small trims beat rare big ones.
• On dark nails, stop when you see a chalky grey circle appear in the cut surface.
• Keep styptic powder or cornflour nearby. Everyone nicks a quick eventually; it looks dramatic and stops quickly.
• Many dogs prefer a grinder to clippers. Introduce it switched off first, then running near them, then touching a nail for one second.
• Do not forget dewclaws. They touch nothing and grow into the pad if ignored.

Teeth

Dental disease is the most common diagnosed condition in adult dogs and it is painful long before you notice. Brush daily if you can, three times a week at minimum, with toothpaste made for dogs — human toothpaste contains fluoride and sometimes xylitol.

1. Week one: let the dog lick the paste off your finger. That is the whole session.
2. Week two: finger along the outer gum line for three seconds.
3. Week three: introduce the brush, outer surfaces only. Dogs rarely need the inner surfaces done.
4. Forever: small circles at the gum line, thirty seconds a side, then something nice.

Ears

Check weekly. A healthy ear is pale pink and smells of nothing. Yeast smells sweet and musty; infection smells bad and looks dark and waxy. Clean with a vet-approved solution, fill the canal, massage the base, let the dog shake, wipe what comes out. Never push cotton buds down the canal. Floppy-eared and swimming dogs need checking more often.

Bathing

Most dogs need a bath every one to three months, or when they have found something dead. Over-bathing strips the coat. Use dog shampoo — canine skin has a different pH than yours — rinse for twice as long as you think necessary, and dry double coats thoroughly right down to the skin or you will grow mould in there.

Anal glands, unfortunately

Two small scent sacs beside the anus that normally empty on their own. Scooting along the carpet, excessive licking, or a sudden fishy smell means they may be impacted. Ask a vet or groomer to check rather than squeezing them yourself; over-expressing causes inflammation.

Exercise and enrichment

How much

Sniffing counts

Fifteen minutes of free sniffing tires a dog roughly as much as an hour of brisk heel walking. Scent is the dog's primary sense — the olfactory apparatus is orders of magnitude more sensitive than ours, and a walk where the dog is allowed to read the neighbourhood is a walk that satisfies. Let the lead go slack and let it sniff. You are not in a race.

Enrichment that costs nothing

• Scatter feeding — throw the dinner into the grass and let the dog hunt for it.
• Towel roll — wrap treats in an old towel and let the dog unwrap it.
• Muffin tin game — treats in the cups, tennis balls on top.
• Cardboard box — a box of scrunched paper with kibble in it. Free, and destroyed within the hour, which is the point.
• Find it — hide a toy in another room, send the dog, throw a party when it wins.
• Frozen stuffing — wet food or soaked kibble in a rubber toy, frozen overnight. Lasts a long time and lowers arousal.
• New route — walk the same distance in an unfamiliar direction. Novelty is enrichment.
• Cardboard obstacle course — chairs and brooms in the living room, food to lure the dog through it.

Dog sports worth knowing about

Agility

Jumps, tunnels, weave poles, against the clock. Wait until growth plates close before jumping a young dog.

Scent work / nose work

Finding a target odour in boxes, vehicles or buildings. Suits nervous dogs, old dogs, and dogs who cannot manage crowded classes.

Canicross

Running with the dog in a harness, attached to a belt. Sled breeds finally get a job.

Rally obedience

A numbered course of obedience stations. Friendlier and chattier than formal obedience.

Flyball

Relay racing over hurdles to a ball box. Extremely loud, extremely fun.

Hoopertrials

Low-impact courses with no jumping. Excellent for seniors and for dogs with joint issues.

Trick training

Free, indoors, and a genuinely good relationship builder on rainy days.

Reading dog body language

Dogs communicate constantly, mostly in signals people miss. Learning these is the single highest-value thing an owner can do, because almost every bite is preceded by a long series of ignored polite requests.

Calming signals

These mean "I am uncomfortable, please give me room". They are not stubbornness or guilt.

Lip lick

A quick tongue flick when no food is present. Stress, very often.

Yawn

Out of context, away from sleep. Tension.

Turning the head away

A deliberate refusal to engage, and a request for space.

Whale eye

Head still, eyes swivelled so the whites show in a crescent. The dog is very uncomfortable and often trapped.

Shake off

A full-body shake when not wet. A reset after tension — useful to watch for after a greeting.

Slow motion

Moving unusually slowly. Often a dog trying to defuse a situation.

Scratching or sniffing suddenly

Displacement behaviour, like a person checking their phone in an awkward silence.

Curving

Approaching in an arc rather than head-on. Polite dog greeting; head-on is rude in dog.

The ladder of escalation

A dog usually works through this list in order. Punishing an early rung teaches the dog to skip straight to the top next time, which is how dogs get labelled as biting "without warning".

1. Blinking, yawning, nose licking
2. Turning the head away
3. Turning the body away, sitting, pawing
4. Walking away
5. Creeping, ears flat
6. Lying down, leg up
7. Stiffening, staring
8. Growling
9. Snapping at the air
10. Biting

A growl is information, not insubordination. Thank the dog for it, work out what it needs, and never train it out — a silent dog is far more dangerous than a growling one.

Tails, briefly

A wagging tail means arousal, not friendliness. Read the whole dog:

• Loose, sweeping, low-to-mid, whole back end involved — genuinely happy
• High, fast, stiff, small arc — tense and aroused; this dog may bite
• Tucked low, fast — frightened but still appeasing
• Held straight out, still — assessing, on the edge of a decision

Play or fight?

Good play is bouncy, exaggerated, and full of role swaps: they take turns chasing and being chased, and the bigger dog handicaps itself. Play bows punctuate it. Pauses happen naturally.

Stop things when: one dog is always underneath, the pauses disappear, bodies get stiff, one dog is trying to leave and being blocked, or the noise changes pitch. Do a consent test — hold the more enthusiastic dog for a moment and see whether the other one comes back for more. If it leaves, play is over.

Names (a great many of them)

Practical advice first: two syllables work well, names ending in a vowel carry outdoors, and avoid anything that sounds like a command you use. "Kit" and "sit" will cost you. "Bo" and "no" will too.

Classic

Max · Buddy · Charlie · Rocky · Jack · Duke · Toby · Bear · Cooper · Oscar · Sam · Rusty · Shadow · Riley · Murphy · Gus · Winston · Bailey · Scout · Finn

Classic, other half of the kennel

Luna · Bella · Daisy · Molly · Ruby · Sadie · Maggie · Rosie · Nala · Zoe · Lucy · Penny · Willow · Olive · Hazel · Piper · Nova · Juno · Cleo · Ivy

Food

Biscuit · Waffle · Pickle · Mochi · Miso · Noodle · Pepper · Olive · Peanut · Bagel · Truffle · Muffin · Kimchi · Sushi · Cinnamon · Nacho · Churro · Pretzel · Latte · Brie

Japanese, for the shiba people

Kabosu · Hachi · Yuki (snow) · Kuma (bear) · Momo (peach) · Sora (sky) · Hana (flower) · Ringo (apple) · Taro · Kiko · Nori · Suki · Aki (autumn) · Hoshi (star) · Chibi (small one)

Hebrew and Israeli

Kelev is simply "dog", so probably not that one. Try: Shoko · Choco · Nemo · Lucky · Kofiko · Pitzi · Shushu · Barak (lightning) · Sufa (storm) · Tamar · Zohar · Dvash (honey) · Ozzy · Rimon (pomegranate) · Halva

Mythology and history

Apollo · Athena · Odin · Freya · Thor · Loki · Zeus · Hera · Osiris · Anubis · Caesar · Cleo · Nyx · Atlas · Juno · Hermes · Titan · Saga · Bran · Maeve

Ironic

Tiny (for the great dane) · Moose · Bruiser · Sir Reginald · Meatball · Doctor · Mayor · Cupcake (for the rottweiler) · Kevin · Brenda · Gary · Steve · Karen (be brave) · Sheriff · Professor

Nature

River · Storm · Aspen · Cedar · Sage · Juniper · Cove · Dune · Mesa · Ember · Frost · Onyx · Clover · Birch · Rain · Tundra · Canyon · Bramble · Fern · Slate

Two dogs at once

• Salt and Pepper
• Thunder and Lightning
• Peanut and Butter
• Sonnet and Haiku
• Waffle and Syrup
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Cash and Carry
• Sun and Moon
• Much and Wow
• Miso and Ramen

Adopting and rescuing

Before you get any dog at all

Answer these honestly. Nobody is watching.

• Who walks the dog at 6am on a February Tuesday when you have flu?
• Can you cover a €3,000 emergency surgery this year, from savings or insurance?
• How many hours a day will the dog be alone? Four is usually workable; nine is not, without help.
• Does your lease actually allow dogs, in writing?
• Where does the dog go when you travel, and does that person know yet?
• Is everyone in the household in agreement, including the one who is quiet about it?
• Are you prepared for this for ten to sixteen years, through moves, jobs, and relationships?

Questions to ask a shelter

1. What do you know about the dog's history, and what is guesswork?
2. How does it behave with other dogs, cats, children?
3. Has it shown guarding around food, toys or spaces?
4. How is it in the car, alone, at night?
5. What is it like at the vet and during handling?
6. What behavioural support do you offer after adoption?
7. What is the return policy, and what happens if it does not work out?

Questions to ask a breeder

1. May I meet the mother, and see where the puppies actually live?
2. What health tests have both parents had, and may I see the certificates? (Hips, elbows, eyes, heart, and breed-specific genetic panels.)
3. How many litters does the mother have, and how often?
4. What socialisation do the puppies get before they leave?
5. At what age do they go home? (Eight weeks minimum, and be suspicious of anything earlier.)
6. What happens if I cannot keep the dog in five years? (The right answer is "you bring it back to me.")

Warning signs

• Meeting in a car park instead of at home
• Several breeds available right now, all puppies, all ready today
• No sight of the mother, or a mother who is fearful and thin
• No health testing, or "the vet checked them" as a substitute for it
• Payment pressure, deposits before you have seen anything, cash only
• Puppies under eight weeks old
• The word "teacup", which is a marketing term for a dog bred small enough to be fragile
• Any claim of a rare colour at a premium price — often linked to health problems in the same lines

Gear checklist

Travelling with a dog

By car

• Restrain the dog: crate in the boot, or a crash-tested harness on a seatbelt. In a 50 km/h crash, a 20 kg dog hits the seat in front with roughly a tonne of force.
• Build up from short trips that end somewhere good. A dog whose only car journeys end at the vet will hate the car, reasonably.
• For car sickness, try an empty-ish stomach, cool air, facing forwards, and frequent stops. Ask a vet about medication for longer trips.
• Never leave a dog in a parked car in warm weather. The inside of a car reaches lethal temperatures within minutes, even in shade.

By plane

• Check the airline's rules months ahead; they differ enormously and change often.
• In-cabin is limited to small dogs in a carrier under the seat. Everything else flies as cargo.
• Many airlines refuse flat-faced breeds in cargo entirely, because a number have died in transit.
• Sedation for flying is generally advised against — it affects breathing and temperature regulation at altitude.
• Get the carrier out weeks ahead and feed the dog in it every day, so that on the day it is furniture and not a trap.

Crossing borders

Requirements vary and are enforced strictly. Generally you will need some combination of: a microchip that meets the ISO standard, a rabies vaccination given after the chip, a waiting period after the vaccination, a rabies antibody titre test for some destinations, a tapeworm treatment within a fixed window for a few countries, and an official health certificate issued close to travel. Some of these take months. Start early, and check the destination government's own page rather than a blog — including this one.

Hotels and rentals

• Confirm the dog policy in writing, including size limits and any per-night fee.
• Bring the dog's own bed and a familiar blanket. Novel rooms are much less stressful with a known-smelling base.
• Do not leave a dog alone in a hotel room unless you already know it is silent and settled when alone at home.
• Walk the dog properly before you check in. Arriving with a bored dog is how you get a complaint on night one.

Famous dogs

Fifty dog facts

1. Dogs were the first domesticated species, somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago.
2. Every dog alive descends from wolves, but not from any wolf population that still exists.
3. A dog's nose print is as individual as a human fingerprint.
4. Dogs have around 220 million olfactory receptors; humans have about 6 million.
5. They can smell in stereo, comparing what each nostril gets, which is how they follow a trail direction.
6. A dog exhales through slits at the side of the nose so the outgoing air does not disturb the incoming scent.
7. Dogs are not colourblind. They see blues and yellows well and cannot distinguish red from green.
8. Their vision is better than ours in low light, thanks to a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum — the same thing that makes eyes glow in photos.
9. Dogs hear frequencies up to about 45,000 Hz; humans top out around 20,000.
10. They can move each ear independently, with around eighteen muscles per ear.
11. Puppies are born deaf and blind, and open their eyes around two weeks.
12. An adult dog has 42 teeth. Puppies have 28 and lose them from about four months.
13. Dogs sweat only through their paw pads, and cool mainly by panting.
14. Normal body temperature is around 38–39 °C, higher than ours.
15. A resting heart rate ranges roughly from 60 bpm in big dogs to 140 in small ones.
16. Dogs dream. Their sleep shows the same REM patterns as ours, and small breeds dream more often than large ones.
17. They twitch and paddle in sleep because a small part of the brainstem relaxes the paralysis that normally prevents it.
18. Dogs curl up to sleep because it protects the organs and conserves heat — a habit older than domestication.
19. They turn in circles before lying down, probably an inherited grass-flattening routine.
20. A dog's sense of time appears to be partly olfactory: scents in a room fade predictably, and dogs read that fade.
21. Dogs make eye contact with humans in a way wolves do not, and mutual gazing raises oxytocin in both species.
22. They follow human pointing gestures spontaneously, which chimpanzees largely do not.
23. Puppies understand pointing at six weeks old, before much human contact.
24. The average dog can learn around 165 words; exceptional individuals learn over a thousand.
25. A border collie named Chaser reliably identified more than 1,000 toys by name.
26. Dogs process speech with a left-hemisphere bias for words and a right-hemisphere bias for tone, similar to us.
27. Greyhounds reach about 70 km/h and accelerate faster than a racehorse.
28. A greyhound sprinting spends roughly three quarters of its stride fully airborne.
29. The tallest recorded dogs are great danes, over 110 cm at the shoulder.
30. The smallest adult dogs weigh under 1 kg.
31. Smaller dogs generally live longer than large ones, reversing the usual mammal pattern.
32. The "one dog year equals seven human years" rule is wrong. A one-year-old dog is roughly equivalent to a teenager.
33. Dachshunds were bred to fight badgers underground; the name means "badger dog".
34. Basenjis do not bark. They yodel.
35. Dalmatians are born pure white and develop spots over several weeks.
36. Around 30% of dalmatians are deaf in at least one ear, linked to the same gene as the coat.
37. Newfoundlands have webbed feet and a water-resistant coat, and have been used for water rescue for centuries.
38. Chow chows and shar-peis have blue-black tongues.
39. The Norwegian lundehund has six toes on each foot and can bend its head back to its spine.
40. Bloodhound trail evidence has been accepted in some courts, so good is the nose.
41. Dogs can be trained to detect certain cancers, low blood sugar, and impending seizures.
42. Trained dogs have detected COVID-19 infection from sweat samples at accuracy rates comparable to some rapid tests.
43. A dog's whiskers sense air currents and help judge gaps in the dark. Do not trim them.
44. Dogs prefer to align along the north–south magnetic axis when relieving themselves, per a 2013 study nobody expected.
45. Yawns are contagious between humans and dogs, more so between a dog and its own person.
46. Dogs tilt their head partly to move the ear flaps and locate sound, and partly to see around a long muzzle.
47. Licking a face began as a puppy signal asking an adult to bring up food. Enjoy that next time.
48. The Doge meme's grammar — "much wow", "so scare" — was named the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year for 2013.
49. Dogs' paws smell of corn chips because of harmless bacteria and yeast. The phenomenon has an unofficial name: Frito feet.
50. There are somewhere over 900 million dogs on Earth, and most of them are free-ranging village dogs rather than pets.

Quiz yourself

Ten questions. Answers hide behind the triangles, so you can be wrong privately.

1. Your dog growls when you approach its food bowl. What do you do?

   Answer

   Back off, then start dropping better food into the bowl as you walk past, without reaching in. The growl is a warning you want to keep. Punishing it removes the warning, not the feeling. If it persists, get a qualified behaviourist — this is one to take seriously.

2. Your dog eats a piece of sugar-free gum. How urgent is it?

   Answer

   Extremely. Sugar-free gum usually contains xylitol, which can cause a dangerous drop in blood sugar within half an hour and liver failure afterwards. Emergency vet, now, with the packet in your hand.

3. A dog is wagging its tail high and fast in short stiff arcs. Is it friendly?

   Answer

   Not necessarily. Wagging signals arousal, not friendliness. High, stiff and fast with a tense body is a dog on the edge of a decision. Read the whole animal.

4. How long can a three-month-old puppy reasonably hold its bladder?

   Answer

   About four hours — age in months plus one — and considerably less while awake and playing.

5. Your husky is too hot in summer. Should you shave the coat?

   Answer

   No. A double coat insulates against heat as well as cold and protects against sunburn. Shaving it can permanently ruin the regrowth. Brush out the undercoat, provide shade and water, and walk in the cool hours.

6. You call your dog and it ignores you, twice. What now?

   Answer

   Stop calling. Every unanswered repetition teaches the dog that the word is optional. Go and get the dog, then make the next few hundred recalls easier and better paid.

7. Your dog comes home from a walk and there is a tick on its ear. How do you remove it?

   Answer

   With a tick hook or fine tweezers, gripping close to the skin and twisting steadily out. No burning, no alcohol, no petroleum jelly — those make the tick regurgitate into the wound.

8. Which of these is the biggest emergency: limping, vomiting once, or retching repeatedly with a swollen belly?

   Answer

   The last one. Unproductive retching plus a distended abdomen suggests bloat, which can kill a large dog in a matter of hours.

9. How much of a dog's behaviour does breed actually explain?

   Answer

   Around 9%, in the largest study to date. Breed shifts the odds. It does not write the dog.

10. Complete the sentence, in the correct dialect: "____ loyal."

    Answer

    Much loyal. "Very loyal" is simply English, and English is not the point.

Questions people actually ask

Glossary

Blowing coat

The twice-yearly event where a double-coated dog sheds its undercoat in clumps and your home becomes upholstered.

Brachycephalic

Short-skulled and flat-faced. Pugs, frenchies, bulldogs. Associated with airway problems.

Counter-conditioning

Changing how a dog feels about a thing by pairing it with something good, repeatedly.

Desensitisation

Exposing a dog to a trigger at an intensity low enough that it stays relaxed, then increasing slowly.

Dewclaw

The thumb-like nail higher up the leg. Does not wear down naturally and needs trimming.

Free shaping

Rewarding successive approximations of a behaviour without luring, so the dog works out the answer itself.

Growth plates

Soft areas at the ends of young bones, closing between roughly 8 and 18 months. High-impact exercise before closure risks lasting damage.

Luring

Using food to guide a dog into a position. Fade the lure within about ten repetitions or it becomes a bribe.

Marker

A sound — a clicker, or the word "yes" — that tells the dog the exact instant it earned a reward.

Prey drive

The instinct to chase moving things. Not aggression, not fixable, but trainable around.

Reactivity

An over-the-top response to a trigger, usually rooted in fear or frustration rather than aggression.

Resource guarding

Defending food, toys, spaces or people. Common, normal, and very treatable with the right help.

Threshold

The point at which a dog stops being able to think and take food. Training below threshold is training; above it is rehearsal of panic.

Trigger stacking

Several stressors within a short window adding up, so a dog that copes with each one alone explodes at the fourth.

Zoomies

Frenetic random activity periods. Normal, healthy, usually after a bath or at 10pm on a Tuesday for no reason.

Guestbook

It is 1998 in here, so of course there is a guestbook. This form has nowhere to send anything — there is no server behind this page — but you may fill it in for the pleasure of it.

Colophon

Hand-written HTML with one stylesheet in the head of the same file. No JavaScript, no analytics, no consent dialog, no newsletter modal sliding up from the bottom right. Delete the style block and the page still works, start to finish — which is the argument for writing the structure first and the paint second.

Two typefaces: Archivo for headings, tables and anything you scan; Newsreader for the paragraphs you actually read. Comic Sans appears exactly once, at the top, where it is load-bearing. The colours come off the dogs themselves — shiba red, sesame, moss, and an indigo borrowed from an old kennel manual, printed on paper the colour of a vet’s waiting room in 1974.

Elements used, for the curious

section, nav, details, summary, table, caption, dl, blockquote, figure, abbr, cite, q, datalist, fieldset and a great many uls.

About the information here

General guidance assembled for people who like dogs. Veterinary and behavioural specifics vary by country, by breed and by individual dog. For anything medical, ask your vet. For anything behavioural that involves growling, biting or panic, ask a qualified behaviourist rather than the internet — including this bit of it.

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