THIS week has been full of news about dogs being poisoned at Crufts, so here are some less poisonous canine facts about man’s best friend.
1.The most popular dogs’ names in the UK are Max for males and Bella for females.
2.In 2008, police dogs in Dusseldorf were given plastic shoes to protect their paws from glass.
3.Launce’s dog Crab, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, is the only dog required to appear on stage in Shakespeare.
4.Research shows that dogs in the UK are most likely to bite people when there is a full moon.
5.Cartoonist Charles Addams, of Addams family fame, married his third wife in a dog cemetery.
6.The St Bernard dog is named after St Bernard of Montjoux (923-1008), patron saint of skiers and mountaineers who founded hospices for climbers and is said to have rid the Alps of robbers.
7.Alexander the Great named a town after his favourite dog Peritas.
8.It was one of the now-extinct Mollosian breed, a sort of giant Rottweiler. Alexander’s pet is said to have won fights against a lion and an elephant.
9.The Canary Islands are named after dogs not canaries: Insulae Canariae, the islands of dogs.
10.The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘puppy-water’ as “the urine of a puppy, formerly used as a cosmetic”
