7 True and Cute Things About Puppies: We all know that dogs are very cute. There is scientific proof that they’re too cute for words. But the little pets are more than just those cute puppy eyes. To celebrate National Puppy Day on March 23, here are 25 facts about these cute four-legged friends.
1. The word puppy comes from the French language.
The word “puppy” may have come from the French word “poupeé,” which means “doll” or “toy.” The word “puppy” doesn’t seem to have been used in English until the late 1600s. Before that, people in England called baby dogs “whelps.”
The (super cute) word “puppy-dog” was first used in William Shakespeare’s “King John,” which is thought to have been written in the 1590s.
2. Some dogs have evolved to be blind and deaf when they are born.
When they are born, puppies are blind and deaf. They have their eyes and ear canals closed on the first day. Why? It’s a trade-off that species have had to make over time. It is important for carnivores to be able to find food while they are pregnant, so dogs have short gestation periods.
Dog mothers wouldn’t have to take long breaks from hunting when their pregnancies were short. But because dog embryos only stay in the womb for about two months, puppies aren’t fully developed when they are born. Their eyes and ears are also not fully developed.
3. Dogs and puppies also have baby teeth.
Puppies are born without any teeth, just like many other mammals. The 28 baby teeth in a puppy will start to come in between 2 and 4 weeks of age. Puppies lose their baby teeth between 12 and 16 weeks old. By the time they are 6 months old, they should have all 42 adult teeth.
4. PUPPS LOVE TO SLEEP.
Puppy dogs need up to 20 hours of sleep every day, just like kids. The American Kennel Club strongly advises dog owners not to wake up puppies that are sleeping because sleep is important for the brain, muscles, and immune system development of young dogs.
Also, puppy owners should make sure their dogs have a safe place to sleep where they won’t be disturbed.
5. MANY BREEDS OF DOGS ARE BORN BY C-SECTION.
Purebred dogs can have very odd body shapes, which can make giving birth harder sometimes. It’s more likely for breeds with unusually big heads to be born by C-section than for breeds with smaller skulls.
More than 80% of the time, terriers, bulldogs, and French bulldogs had Caesarean births, according to a study of 22,005 dog litters in the UK in 2010. According to the study, the other dog breeds that had the most C-sections were mastiffs, German wirehaired pointers, Pekingeses, tiny bull terriers, Scottish terriers, and miniature bull terriers.
6. LITTERS ON SOME DOG BREEDS ARE BIGGER THAN ONOTHERS.
Usually, smaller dog breeds have smaller litters, while larger dog breeds have more puppies. An Italian mastiff had the largest litter ever when she had 24 puppies in Cambridgeshire, UK, in 2004.
The puppies were born through a Caesarean section. Sometimes, though, very small dogs do have litters that are pretty big. A Chihuahua in Carlisle, England, gave birth to ten puppies in 2011, which was twice as many as anyone thought would happen.
It was less than 2.5 ounces for each one.
7. SOME GIRLS ARE BIRTHDAY GREEN.
A light-colored litter can sometimes have a green puppy. There were two times in 2017 when British dogs were in the news for having puppies that were green. There was a mossy-green puppy born in Lancashire, UK, in January to a chocolate lab that was 2 years old.
The people who owned her named her FiFi, after Fiona, the green-skinned ogre from Shrek. Not long after that, in the Scottish Highlands, a golden retriever also had a male puppy with a green coat. He was named Forest. How did the puppies end up in the same shade as Kermit?
Green biliverdin, which is found in dog placentas, can sometimes stain the fur of a light-haired puppy. That’s not going to last, though. Over the course of a few weeks, the green colour fades away slowly.
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