Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children October 2016

Are dogs really man’s best friend? Depends on who you ask, but they are certainly popular pets throughout the world. But these loyal companions are more than pets. Here are five facts to get you started. 1. All dogs share about 99 percent of the same DNA with gray wolves, according to UCLA researcher Dr. Robert Wayne. Researchers believe the domestication of dogs began about 12,000 years ago. 2. Have you ever heard a dog sing? The New Guinea singing dog “sings” by howling a specific note or two. This breed can also climb trees! 3. Sirius, one of the brightest stars in the sky, is also called the Dog Star. In late summer, it appears in the sky just before sunrise, meaning that it’s close to our sun. For…

What does the Chihuahua in your chair have in common with the gray wolf that roams the wilds? They share about 99 percent of the same doggie DNA, according to UCLA researcher, Dr. Robert Wayne! So for all intents and purposes, your Chihuahua IS a wolf, as are all dogs, no matter how small, dopey, or ferocious. So, what does a gray wolf look like? Think “large German Shepherd.” Gray wolves have long bushy tails, and can be anywhere from a mix of gray and brown to solid white, brown, or black. They are carnivorous, and can hunt smaller mammals such as beaver and hare, or large elk, bison, and moose. An adult gray wolf can eat 20 pounds of meat in a single meal. Wolves live in packs of…

As an evolutionary biologist and member of Cornell University’s biology department, Dr. Abby Drake studies how organisms change over time. She also happens to be an expert on skulls. Skulls are excellent indicators of evolutionary changes that have occurred over long periods of time. Drake began studying the skulls of dogs and wolves while in graduate school. In order to determine how dogs evolved from wolves, she used a 3D digitizer to measure hundreds of dog and wolf skulls. Digitizers create three dimensional digital images and can measure very subtle shape changes in objects. Drake amassed a database that contained the skull measurements of more than 800 dogs and 400 wolves. In order to obtain many of them, she traveled with her portable digitizer to Alaska and Switzerland. A museum…

One of the things we like best about dogs is that they come in so many different shapes, sizes, and temperaments. There are dogs small enough to fit inside a teacup, and dogs so big that they sometimes take their owners for walks instead of the other way around! There are sleek racing dogs and sturdy rescue dogs and agile sheep herding dogs. Many dogs were bred for specific jobs or places, and if you explore some of these dog breeds, you often get a history lesson as well. Scientists have studied dog DNA and learned that modern dogs all descend from different types of wolves, but that individual dog breeds vary because not all dogs came from the same kind of wolf or developed in the same part of…

Most people who love dogs have no trouble with the idea that a dog might be more important than just a furry companion. And throughout history, dogs have been seen as royalty, or even as gods and magical beings. Ancient Egyptians revered their cats, but several of their gods were dogs, or looked partially like dogs. Anubis, the god of the underworld and mummification, had the body of a man and the head of a jackal. Real jackals were often found near cemeteries in ancient Egypt and were associated with death. Anubis’ job was to protect the dead as they journeyed to the afterlife. Set, another Egyptian god, also had a dog’s head on a human body. He was a storm god associated with strange and frightening events such as…

You might think that Sirius is just the satellite radio you listen to in the car. But Sirius is also the name of one of the sky’s brightest stars, visible from any place on earth. It is part of the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog). Sirius is often called the Dog Star. In late summer, Sirius appears in the sky just before sunrise, meaning that it’s close to our sun. For this reason, the hot days of July and August are often called “the dog days of summer” because Sirius can be seen easily then. Sirius even had its own Greek goddess, Seirios, who was also the goddess of drought because her star usually appeared at times of scorching heat and little rain.…