7 There is a phenomenon called Frito Feet which causes dog’s paws to smell like corn chips or popcorn. The smell comes from a mixture of bacteria and fungi on the floor that stick to the sweat of their paws.

Pseudomonas and proteus are two different types of bacteria commonly found in soil or water and make their way to the dog’s paws. When a dog walks on a wet surface, has sweat on the paws or has licked and walked immediately, these bacteria could lodge themselves in their paws. Of the two types of bacteria, pseudomonas is the one that gives the paws the smell of snack food.(source)

8 Dogs are the only species known to understand the visual cues from the eyes of humans. 

Sclera, the portion of the eye around the iris, in humans is completely white while in animals the visible portion is the same color as the iris and the rest white. Because of the social nature of humans, our eyes have evolved to have smaller iris and a more conspicuous sclera to aid communication. It also helps to accurately discern who an individual is looking at when there is more than one person around, and dogs are the only other species that could interpret the visual cues of human eyes. Animal researchers have found that dogs have developed this ability during the course of their domestication over time.(source)

9 Even average family dogs that are largely inactive and sleep most of the day have more endurance than the most fit human athlete. 

Dogs have a higher rate of maximum oxygen use when compared to humans, which means that they are less likely to get tired than us. They are capable of efficiently consuming oxygen when exercising at maximum capacity which gives them increased aerobic energy and extra endurance. Unlike us, dogs get their energy from fat instead of carbohydrates, and their endurance is based on how well they can utilize the fat stores in their body. The amount of energy they get from fat oxidation is twice as high when compared to less aerobic animals such as goats.(source)

10 Contrary to the common belief, dogs can see colors. They have two cone cells in their eyes, unlike three in humans, which means they can see they can see colors in between blue and yellow.

Many people think that dogs can only see in monochrome and use the differences in brightness to distinguish the outlines of the objects. After scientist Jay Neitz discovered that dogs contain two cones, a team of researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences tested the sights of eight dogs of various sizes and breeds. They used four pieces of paper with different colors to find out whether the dogs identified an object by means of its color or brightness. The result being, that 6 out of the 8 dogs made choices based on color 90 to 100 percent of the time.(source)

11 A Russian dog whose owners were killed in a car accident, refused to leave the site despite attempts to adopt or re-home him. He waited for his owners for 7 years until he died. The city people informally adopted him and built a monument named “Loyalty” to him.

The dog, whose actual name was unknown, was travelling with a girl and a man when the accident happened. The girl died on the spot and the man was rushed to the hospital but didn’t survive, but the dog did. Since then he would wait at the spot, in all weather, rain or snow, and all through the year running up to the passing cars to see if it were his owners. In the beginning the people were curious, but soon the story of the dog spread around and they called him “Kostya”, meaning “Loyalty”. Despite several attempts by the people to adopt him or building doghouses for him, he would always come back to the spot and all he would take from them was food. After he died, they campaigned and had a bronze statue built of him.(source)

12 Dogs now watch a lot more TV, thanks to the high-definition sets that are now prevalent at homes. The old CRTs were too blurry for the dogs, but with modern flat-screens they can see as clearly as humans. 

Our eyes are capable of discerning the frames of a video at 55 fps (frames per second), where as dogs do it at 75 fps, which means the older CRT TVs which work at around 60 fps are not good enough for them. Because of the low refresh rate, the videos appear to flicker too much for them, which is why the videos flat-screens with higher fps would seem more real. There are apparently reports of dogs becoming more and more interested in watching TV, enjoy shows with nature and animals, with even new channels cropping up just for dogs.(source)