Dan Gutman - My Weird School Fast Facts: Dogs, Cats, and Dung Beetles

Contents

Courtesy of Dan Gutman and Jim Paillot

DAN GUTMAN has written many weird books for kids. He lives with his weird wife in New York (a very weird place). You can visit him on his weird website at www.dangutman.com.

JIM PAILLOT lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isnt that weird? You can visit him on his weird website at www.jimpaillot.com.

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We should start with dogs because lots of kids have dogs, and dogs are cool. Did you know that dogs have nose prints just like people have fingerprints! You can even identify your dog by its nose print.

French poodles didnt come from France. They came from Germany.

Dalmatians arent born with spots. Theyre completely white at birth. The spots start to show up when theyre about ten days old.

The shoulder blades on a dog are not tightly attached to the rest of its skeleton. That makes it easier for a dog to run.

Do you know why male dogs raise their leg while peeing on a tree? They want other dogs to think theyre bigger. Some wild dogs in Africa even run up tree trunks while theyre peeing.

No pee facts, Arlo! We talked about this!

Okay, okay! The oldest dog in the history of the world was an Australian cattle dog named Bluey. He lived almost thirty years, from 1910 to 1939.

The smallest dog ever was a Yorkshire terrier. It was less than three inches tall and less than four inches from nose to tail, and it weighed only four ounces. It must have been adorable!

The biggest dog in the history of the world was Zorba, an English mastiff. He weighed 343 pounds and was eight feet three inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

An English mastiff

You may have heard that you should never feed chocolate to a dog. Here are some other foods that might make your dog sick: macadamia nuts, corn on the cob, grapes, raisins, onions, tobacco, or anything with caffeine.

When the famous ship the Titanic sank, three of the survivors were dogs. Two of them were Pomeranians; the third was a Pekinese. They were all small dogs, so probably nobody noticed when they were carried onto the lifeboats.

Dogs can see in the dark, and they have three eyelids on each eye!

When dogs sweat, it comes out the pads of their feet.

We have about nine thousand taste buds. Dogs have less than two thousand. But dont feel bad for dogs. Their sense of smell is ten thousand times stronger than ours.

In 2015, lampposts were falling down in San Diego. Youll never believe why. Dogs were peeing on them, and a chemical in the urine was rotting the metal! Also, when dogs poop, they like to choose their direction based on the Earths magnetic field!

Arlo! What did we say about peeing and pooping?

Okay, okay! The Norwegian Lundehund is the only dog that has six toes on each foot.

A Great Pyrenees named Duke has been the mayor of Cormorant, Minnesota, for three consecutive terms.