영어속독<ROFA영어: 34>--DOGS

 

Dogs

 

Dogs are very popular pets all over the world. Some people keep dogs because the dogs help them. These dogs may protect someone's house. They can also help a blind person by leading the person to places where he or she needs to go. Other people keep dogs as pets just because they like dogs.

 

Some of the most popular kinds of dogs which people have as pets are german shepherds, poodles, and dalmatians. Almost 33 percent of the homes in the United States and England have dogs, and these dogs come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

 

By all accounts, the largest dog in the world is a dog named Zorba. This dog is a mastiff that lives in London, England. When Zorba was seven years old in 1989, he was 92.5 centimeters (37 inches) tall. In other words, Zorba was more than half as tall as an adult man. Some great Danes can grow taller than 98 centimeters (39 inches), but they do not grow as large as Zorba. At his largest, Zorba weighed more than a heavyweight boxer at 156 kilograms (343 pounds).

 

In comparison, the smallest dog was a Yorkshire terrier from England. This dog was only the size of a matchbox measuring 5 centimeters (2.5 inches) tall and, at most 8 centimeters (3.75 inches) from nose to tail. It was certainly possible for even a child to pick up this dog with one hand. The dog weighed less than a small bag of potato chips (115 grams or about 4 ounces). It died in 1945 when it was only two years old. (269 words)

 

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