The Pup Patrol

Aarf! Hey kids, we’re The Pup Patrol! We’re all kind of small right now, but some of us are going to get really big. Don’t mind the Basenji over there, he never barks, so we talk for him. He’s a runner. Watch him run sometime, and I’m sure you’ll be impressed. I’m a boerboel. When I grow up, I’ll weigh as much as 200 pounds! I’ll either be your best friend or your worst enemy if you try to hurt anyone I care about. And our little white friend over there is the coton de tulear. He’ll stay really small, only getting to about fifteen pounds when he’s an adult. He may look really fluffy, but he’s super smart and super friendly. We’re all from Africa, yet you might have noticed, we’re really different in appearance and personality. You want to know why?

Pup Patrol

I thought you might. Human pups are always so interested in learning, which is awesome! See, we may all look really different, but we’re all dogs. We’re all the dog kind. That means that we all trace our family tree back to a pair of dogs that got off the ark. God told Noah he would send “Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive” in Genesis 6:20. After the flood, we spread out and ended up looking a lot different than each other, but none of us look like anything other than dogs. Thank goodness we don’t look like cats, that would be awful!

But did you know, you’re a lot like us? Here’s what I mean. Like us, man was supposed to spread out after the flood. But they didn’t do it right away, so at Babel, God confused their languages and then they did spread out. Because they spread out, different groups ended up looking and living in different ways in different environments. But, just like my buddies and me here, they are all from the group that got off the ark. Acts 17:26 says “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth . . . .” All mankind is descended from Noah’s three sons, just like the three of us are all descended from Noah’s dogs.

Fast Facts About Basenjis

Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Genus: Canis
Species: lupus familiaris
Size: From 15–17 inches at the shoulder
Habitat: Central Africa
Lifespan: 13-14 years

Fast Facts About Boerboels

Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Genus: Canis
Species: lupus familiaris
Size: From 22–27 inches at the shoulder
Habitat: South Africa
Lifespan: 9–11 years

Fast Facts About Coton de Tulears

Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Genus: Canis
Species: lupus familiaris
Size: From 9–11 inches
Habitat: Madagascar
Lifespan: 15–19 years