Dogs have shared our homes, couches and hearts for thousands of years, yet surprisingly, many myths about them still persist. Some are harmless old wives’ tales, while others can affect how we train, feed and care for our pets.

1. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or can you?

It may be hard to change an older dog’s behaviour, but training your pooch to learn something new isn’t. For instance if your dog begs for food, trying to stop it doing that can be difficult. However, training it to do something completely new isn’t that hard, so keep traing your older dogs and you’ll be surprised what they can still learn. 

2. Dogs are colour-blind – or maybe not?

You’ll often here people saying that dogs are colour-blind and that having colourful toys for your dog is pointless. Not so much. Dogs can in fact see colour, however, they can only see a limited spectrum of colours and not the broad variety humans can see. They might not see red and green the way we do, but they can still see a limited variety of other colours. 

3. One human year equals 7 dog years – or 6 or even 10?

Different size dogs age differently. Many smaller breeds live longer than larger breeds. A Jack Russel for instance can live much longer than 14 years, while a Great Dane or German Shepherd will be extremely lucky to live to 12. As a result, the smaller breeds could be worked out to average out to about 17 years which we can call 100 dog years. This means that one human year equals roughly 6 dog years. While larger dog breeds live on average to about 10 years of age. That would work out to be 10 dog years to 1 human year.

4. Dogs eat grass when they are sick – or are they just snacking?

There are many studies that suggest a variety of reasons for dogs eating grass, including trying to supplement their diet, aid digestion, rid themselves of worms, and adding fibre to their diet. The dog may also just like the taste of grass. Whatever the reason, it is suggested that only 10% of dogs that eat grass are actually sick. If you are worried about them or their behaviour has suddenly changed along with eating grass, do visit your vet. 

5. Only male dogs hump – or not?

Dogs do hump for sexual purposes and this is only in males generally, but other reasons could include excitement, and incorrect socialisation. Both male and female dogs can be affected by excitement and incorrect socialisation. We can therefore kick that myth to the curb. The reasons why dogs hump when excited is due to what is called a coping mechanism. This means that when the dog gets too excited for whatever reason it will do something to try and cope. Some dogs lick, some dogs shake, others will hump.

Content by HDDT K9 Service. 

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