29 Happy Animal Facts To Put A Smile On Your Face

    Pigs are actually pretty excellent cuddlers!

    1. Switzerland banned guinea pigs from living alone because they're so sociable.

    2. The corn fritters known as hush puppys earned their name because they were tossed to barking dogs in order to quiet them down.

    3. The national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.

    4. The dog that played Comet on Full House was also Air Bud!

    5. There is a hotel in Kenya that doubles as a giraffe sanctuary and giraffes are allowed to stick their heads through the hotel windows.

    6. Freddie Mercury loved his cats so much that he wrote the Queen song, "Delilah" about his cat of the same name.

    7. Crows place nuts in the street so cars can crack them open, then wait for the traffic light to change and return to the street to eat them.

    8. Wildlife conservationist Alan Rabinowitz devoted his life to animals because he stuttered so much as a child that he could barely speak, and animals were "the only ones [he] could talk to."

    9. In the 14th century, sailors used Bichon Frises as goodwill ambassadors when traveling between continents because of their personable nature.

    10. A woman named Priska Küng runs a Rent-A-Guinea Pig service where she lends out one of her eighty guinea pigs to owners who have lonely pigs.

    11. Emperor penguins are so shy, scientists had to disguise a rover as a baby penguin in order to study them.

    12. Sigmund Freud had a Chow Chow named Jofi who sat in on some of his therapy sessions and helped calm and assess patients.

    13. A 9-year-old boy from the Philippines started his very own non-profit, no-kill animal shelter.

    14. Leonardo da Vinci loved animals so much he would often buy caged birds just to set them free.

    15. The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel earned the nickname the "comforter spaniel" because of its friendly and loving nature.

    16. Abraham Lincoln had two goats named Nanny and Nanko, and they often slept in his son Tad's bed.

    17. And the Beach Boys' song, "Shannon" was written about guitarist/singer, Carl Wilson's Irish Setter.

    18. Early explorers like Christopher Columbus recorded seeing female figures in the ocean but they weren't mermaids--they were hanging with manatees!

    19. You can donate your leftover Christmas tree to a zoo and they'll use it to feed their animals!

    20. Other raccoons will back down during feeding to let a a mother and her cubs eat before any others.

    21. A goat named William Windsor was demoted from his rank as Lance Corporal in the British Army for "disobeying a direct order."

    22. A baby eagle is called an eaglet.

    23. And a baby hedgehog is called a piglet.

    24. Puffins mate for life and return to the same nesting site each year to raise their new chick.

    25. Horses have a memory that is as good as an elephant, and if they have positive experiences with a human they'll never forget that person.

    26. Squirrels will dig fake food storage sites and cover them back up several times before actually storing a nut, just to trick their competitors.

    27. Raccoons can remember solutions to certain tasks for "up to three years."

    28. When rats are happy or playing, they let out a cheerful sound that is similar to laughter.

    29. Pigs dislike being picked up, but snuggling up on your lap is one of their favorite activities.