Top Questions Pet Parents Ask Google | Parnell Paws Blog - Australia

When you don’t know the answer to something, most likely you will pull out your phone or go to your computer and visit one specific website: Google. Well, you are not alone.  The amazing people at Google used data over a 4-year period, from 2014-2018, to see what the top pet-related questions were. It seems there were roughly 2,150 “most common questions” about dogs that started with the word “why.” Google has recently unveiled these questions, provided answers complete with engaging illustrations. Here’s what they found.

The top 10 most common questions about dogs were:

Why do dogs:

1. Lick
2. Eat grass
3. Eat poop
4. Howl
5. Hump
6. Smell
7. Bark
8. Shake
9. Scratch
10. Bite

Google went even further, creating an amazing circle map to define the topics as a main topic, then grouped them with like topics. The bigger the circle, the more popular the question was. Yes, these people at Google are truly amazing! Plus, they gave you an easy search tool to find all the answers to your questions right on this page.

Who asked the most questions?

Another interesting point was a break down of who was asking these questions, and where they were from. If you are dog lovers like us, you will be pleased to know that 85% of the pet-related questions had to deal with dogs over cats. The countries varied. Here are the top 10 countries the questions came from:

1. Vietnam
2. United States
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
5. Costa Rica 
6. Chile
7. Canada
8. Laos
9. Mexico
10. Paraguay

Funny Questions

In our opinion, the funniest questions asked by many to Google was:

• Is Goofy a dog?
• Why are dogs better than cats? As you can imagine, the cat-lovers asked the opposite.

Answers to some of the top questions

Some of the most common questions, we have answered within the pages right here in our Pet Health blog from Parnell Living Science. The following top questions were asked of Google and the folks at Parnell answered. 

1. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Worst myth ever, but many people still believe this. We wrote an entire blog post on how wrong this is. We think an older person came up with this quote just to get out of learning something they didn’t want to.
2. How old is my dog? While it is true that dogs age faster than humans, one common misconception is that one year of their lives equals seven human years. It is true that dogs don’t live as long as people, there are several factors that contribute to a dog’s age.
3. Why do dogs eat grass? Just as you eat vegetables along with meat, dogs eat grass for many reasons.
4. Why do dogs lick people? There are several good reasons your dog licks your face. Also included here is the question on if it’s safe for a dog to lick your face. Because let’s face it, most of us dog owners have had a dog tongue in our mouths. Spoiler alert: it's fine if a dog licks your face, and even if you get tongue contact inside your mouth. 
5. Why do dogs bite? If you have a dog, most likely you have been bitten by the dog for various reasons. The reasons behind it help find the solution for fixing the problem. For some, it’s a puppy stage to be outgrown. For others, training is needed.

We also wrote 15 Dog Facts and Myth-Busters. It is still one of our more popular blog posts and contains a lot of answers to the questions most Googled. Do you have questions? Feel free to send us your questions through our FaceBook page and we will try and answer them for you. Or… You can always ask Google!

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Parnell Living Science are the experts on arthritis in dogs, and the makers of Glyde Mobility Chews. Our Pet Health blog was recently named one of the top 10 Best Pet Health Blogs to follow, There are over 6,000 newsletter subscribers and they receive one email per week. Sign up today, if you haven't already!