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Portrait of Looty the Pekingese lion dog, commissioned by Queen Victoria and painted by Friedrich Wilhelm Keyl. Source: Public domain

Queen Victoria’s Dog Was Stolen from Chinese Emperor and Mockingly Called ‘Looty’

What at first glance appears to be an unexceptional dog , actually started out its life in the household of the Chinese emperor before being looted by the English during their sacking of the Old...

Seven Famously Obscure Pets from History

Animal companionship is nothing new to humankind. Throughout history, people have sought out furry (and not-so-furry) friends to spend their days with. However, it wasn’t always just cats and dogs...
Anubis and Xolotl: The Remarkable Resemblance of the Death Dog Gods

Anubis and Xolotl: The Remarkable Resemblance of the Death Dog Gods

Few ancient cultures have captured the modern imagination like the Egyptian and Maya civilizations, with their elaborate belief structures. The author traces a remarkable resemblance between two dog-...
Saudi Arabian Dog Remains Are A Shocking Find

Saudi Arabian Dog Remains Are A Shocking Find

We’ll never get tired of hearing that dogs are a man’s best friend. What is true of domesticated dogs today, has been a socio-cultural and historical phenomenon developed over thousands of years, 15,...
Pet Ddogs

Pet Dogs in the Bronze Age Given Vegetarian Diet!

Do not ever try this at home, but it looks like Bronze Age dogs were vegetarians! Well, according to a study of protein in 3,000-year-old canine bones that is. During the Neolithic period, hunters...
Ancient Red Sea Port May Have World’s Oldest Pet Cemetery

Ancient Red Sea Port May Have World’s Oldest Pet Cemetery

Archaeologists unearthed an extensive animal burial ground at the 2,000-year-old port of Berenice on the Red Sea coast of Egypt a decade ago. Now they say that the evidence found in almost 600 animal...
10,000-Year-Old Dog Bone Supports Theory of Coastal Route to the Americas

10,000-Year-Old Dog Bone Supports Theory of Coastal Route to the Americas

Researchers have found the oldest known dog remains in the Americas and they believe the ancient dog bone fragment reveals how the canine and its brethren likely reached that part of the world. How...
Roman Baby Burial Challenges “Unceremonious Disposal” Dogma

Roman Baby Burial Challenges “Unceremonious Disposal” Dogma

Archeologists digging at France’s Clermont-Ferrand Airport have discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old, upper-class, Roman baby and his pet dog. This rare Roman baby burial discovery further...
A menacing, shaggy black dog with red, glowing eyes

Not Always A Man’s Best Friend: Terrifying Black Dogs of British Legends

Primarily associated with British legends, stories about black dogs, ghost dogs, or hellhounds are present in almost every region of the world. Perhaps the first things to come to your mind when...
Do All Dogs Go To Heaven? Pet Cemeteries and Belief in an Animal Afterlife

Do All Dogs Go To Heaven? Pet Cemeteries and Belief in an Animal Afterlife

The loss of a pet is always tragic. However the way we have treated our pets after their death and the beliefs we hold about what happens after our cherished animal is gone have changed over the...
Respect For Canines Shown In Stone Age Dog Burial In Sweden

8,400 Year Old Dog Burial With Grave Goods Unearthed

Dogs have long been considered to be human’s best friend with evidence of their relationship going back for millennia. Now a remarkable discovery in Sweden, shows that even 8,400 years ago people and...
Scientists are using AI to distinguish between ancient poo left by prehistoric humans and dogs. Source: Wallpaper Flare

The Origin of Poop: AI to Predict Source of Ancient Feces

Archaeologists have applied the principals of AI to distinguish between ancient human and dog poo, cleaning up a storm of scientific confusion over the matter. Looking deep into the future, in...
Remains of the Roman toy dog reveal its tiny stature and a healthy diet similar to its owners. Source: Martínez Sánchez / University of Granada

Ancient Remains Reveal the Romans Had ‘Toy Dogs’ Too

Research in Spain reveals that the Romans loved miniature or toy dogs. In antiquity, many members of the elite had pampered pets. Just as today, many celebrities have ‘toy dogs’ such as chihuahuas...
Hungarian Vizsla out hunting with a pheasant in its mouth.   Source: oroszgy / Adobe stock

Link Between the Huns and Vizsla Dogs Unravels an Ancient Enigma

The history of the Vizsla or Hungarian Pointer breed goes hand in hand with that of the Huns’ (later called Hungarians’ or Magyars’) and even the history of their language. Recent DNA analysis...
The scientists aren’t sure if the 18,000-year-old puppy is a wolf or a dog. Source: Sergey Fedorov

18,000-Year-Old Puppy Found with Whiskers, Hair, and Velvety Nose

By Anna Lisowska, Svetlana Skarbo The male puppy with its arrow-head milky teeth was less than two months old when it died. It was found in summer 2018 inside a lump of a frozen ground near Indigirka...
Peruvian hairless dog. Source: CC BY SA 3.0

Hairless Dogs Hang Out at Peru’s Ancient Pyramids

Ancient hairless dogs parade around Peru’s pyramids, looking for new love. A Peruvian hairless dog known as “perro peruano sin pelo” is defined by its shiny black leathery wrinkled skin, broken by...
Siberian puppy frozen in permafrost for 14,300 years gives scientists major RNA breakthrough. Source: Siberian Times

Siberian Puppy Frozen for 14,300 Years is a Major RNA Breakthrough

By Svetlana Skarbo/Siberian Times Never before has RNA - Ribonucleic acid - sequencing been carried out from so far back in time. Finding RNA on the puppy found preserved in permafrost in Tumat in...
Some of the animal species that held a special place in ancient folklore: Horse (Pixabay License), dog (Pixabay License), hedgehog (Pixabay License), squirrel (Pixabay License), baboon (Pixabay License), cat (Pixabay License).

8 of the Most Popular Animal Species in the Ancient World

Animals far outnumber us on the planet. And while humans have domesticated some of them for work or food, others have been observed, admired, feared, and revered from afar. For many ancient cultures...
The Hell Hound Cerberus.

Cerberus: Legendary Hell Hound of the Underworld

In ancient Greek mythology, there exists a three headed dog called Cerberus that guards the entrance to Hades, a misty and gloomy Underworld in which spirits of the dead are permitted to enter but...
A rock painting possibly depicting a person with a dog.

Bow Wow, Wow! The 45 million-year-old History of Dogs, And Us!

Anyone who has a dog, or has experienced losing one, knows the depth and uniqueness of ‘that special bond’, but why and when in the history of our planet, did this love affair between humans and dogs...
Aztec sculpture representing the head of the aztec god Xolotl, exhibited in the Mexico room of the Museo Nacional de Antropología de México.

Xolotl – The Underworld Dog God of the Aztecs

According to Aztec mythology, Xolotl was a deity normally associated with Quetzalcoatl, one of the most important gods in the Aztec pantheon. As a matter of fact, Xolotl was regarded to be the twin...
Shields bearing image of Ahuizotl, Museum of Ethnology, Vienna.

Was the Ahuizotl an Aztec Mythical Creature or a Real Fisherman’s Foe?

The Ahuizotl (which may be translated from Nahuatl to mean ‘Thorny One of the Water’) is a creature found in the mythology of the Aztecs. This legendary creature is believed to inhabit the lakes and...
Striker, a U.S. Department of Agriculture brown tree snake detector dog, scratches at a cargo load notifying his handler that he has found a snake during a daily training session. Research has begun to see if dogs can detect smuggled antiquities too.

K-9 Artifact Finders Plan to Sniff Out Smuggled Antiquities

An innovative US research program is underway to sniff out smuggled antiquities. Called K-9 Artifact Finders, it is a project set up to train sniffer dogs to aid in the battle against cultural...
A Mayan zoomorphic ceramic of a chihuahua with a corn cob in its mouth.

Corn Dog Was on the Mayan Menu but Was Very Different to Today’s Handheld Snack

A new study shows that animal domestication was not only a question of food for the ancient Maya. Remains of a variety of species, including small dogs, large cats, and some turkeys, suggest the Maya...

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