(Photo of Arnold: Bill Foundation)
For someone who likes facts, I'm surprised I was never good at playing Trivial Pursuit. Perhaps it's because I'm not all that keen on playing board games in general. Could be due to the Snakes and Ladders Meltdown of '71 with my three brothers. It was epic. I admit. I was a sore loser as a kid. Many a cardtable (laid out with game pieces) were tipped over "accidentally" when it became clear to me that I was not in the winning.
Speaking of facts. This is a cool website if you're hungry for facts about dogs and cats. Random Facts and Interesting Trivia for the Curious Mind features 17 categories, one which is Animals. There are 99 facts in each category, enough to get ones "fact fix". Here are just a couple of tasty tidbits in the dog section.
- A dog can locate the source of a sound in 1/600 of a second and can hear sounds four times farther away than a human can.
- The average dog can run about 19 mph. Greyhounds are the fastest dogs on Earth and can run at speeds of 45 mph.
- Different smells in the a dog’s urine can tell other dogs whether the dog leaving the message is female or male, old or young, sick or healthy, happy or angry. (You've got Pee-mail!)
- One female dog and her female children could produce 4,372 puppies in seven years. (Yikes!)
- 70% of US families own a pet.
We certainly can't forget the feline facts, all 99 of them. Here's a few I found interesting. (and when you see the fact list, I warn you that some will make you sad)
- A cat can’t climb head first down a tree because every claw on a cat’s paw points the same way. To get down from a tree, a cat must back down.
- Cats are North America’s most popular pets: there are 73 million cats compared to 63 million dogs. Over 30% of households in North America own a cat.
- While many parts of Europe and North America consider the black cat a sign of bad luck, in Britain and Australia, black cats are considered lucky.
- A cat almost never meows at another cat, mostly just humans. Cats typically will spit, purr, and hiss at other cats.
So if you have some spare time and want to get your fact on, the site is worth checking out. And if they ever come up with an animal themed Trivial Pursuit Game, bring it on!!