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Doggy Facts
By peace | December 6, 2007
If a dog does not have a cold, wet nose, does that mean he is sick? Dog’s noses are complicated little tools that perform a myraid of services and functions. One of those functions is to keep the dog cool by hydrating the air that passes through his nose so that there is an exchange of air that is fresh, cool and moist. The inside of the nose is lined with mucous membranes. These membranes need moisture for good health so they can perform their function, which is to catch debris and germs and all kinds of funky stuff before it reaches the lungs.
The canine snout is great for isolating and sniffing things out, but in order to make it so efficient, the nostrils are necessarily straight and open to air, so they need that added moisture to keep out all the bad stuff and keep the mucous membranes clean and healthy. The ‘wetness’ is a mixture of mucus and saliva, but it starts out as mucus. The dog will lick his nose a lot and the saliva acts as a mucolytic(a substance that thinks mucus).
Sometimes a dog’s nose will even drip, and that’s normal too. The wetness keeps the nose clean and well hydrated so that the nose does not dry out, which would cause the mucous membranes to dry out as well. Dogs, during a single day, will go from a cold wet nose to a warm wet nose to a dry cold nose to a dry warm nose at various times and degrees throughout the day, depending on the ambient factors. If there are breezes, if they are indoors or out, if they are in air conditioning or overheated air, their noses will react accordingly. It’s just as with contact lenses; the ambient factors sometimes determine whether you need to add eye drops or the eye is well hydrated on its own.
Do Dogs have the ability to exhibit facial expressions? Dogs do have the muscles that are necessary to exhibit facial expressions. It’s doubtful, however, that they use facial expressions like we do.
Many pet owners had seen ‘the guilty look’ or a look of surprise or fear in their pet dogs. So there is reason to believe that dogs show facial expression. That could be just our interpretation of what they are doing; we cannot truly know what emotions give rise to the expression. Body language is very important to dogs, but as far as using facial expressions to show disgust, happiness, or anger, it’s hard to say. Even though they have the muscle structure, they probably do not have the attendant, necessary intellectual ability.
Why does a dog pee on the bed? Professor of animal sciences Susan Helmink notes that dogs tend to prefer absorbent substances to pee on(such as grass as opposed to slate). The reason for this is so they do not wet their feet from splashing or pooling urine. So if they are not well housetrained they may see the bed as an absorbent alternative.
Why do dogs wag their tails? Wagging their tails means they are happy.
When dogs are happy, they want others to know they are there and ready to party! But there are times when a wagging tail can signal danger (’flagging’). It’s dog-speak for ‘don’t come near, I’m afraid’. When a dog is wagging his tail slowly from side to side and the tail is stiff, coupled with showing the teeth and raising the hackles, it is not a friendly wagging, it is a danger sign.
A dog’s tail can communicate all kinds of things, such as heightened awareness or interest, fear, defiance, confusion, or aggression. A dog with his tail between his legs is a submissive, fearful dog.
Is it true that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a person’s mouth? All animals have a built-in immune system that helps them fight pathogens. Predators, especially, have an efficient germ-fighting saliva that will defend the body when they eat carrion or diseased prey. The saliva does, in fact, have some antibiotic properties. Human saliva does, as well.
Canine saliva, however, is much more acidic than ours, which makes it inhospitable to bacteria. So in a sense, it is true that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than ours, but where they have about a thousand bacteria per square inch, we may have 10 000 in the same area. So it is cleaner, but it is not clean.
Topics: Animals, Gallery, Pets |
