Adult ESL Lessons: Facts About Cats and Dogs (Advanced)

This is Lesson 32, “Facts about Cats and Dogs,” from our book of 48 advanced adult ESL lessons, ESL Pathways: Frontiers. The lesson features a reading passage with facts about cats and dogs, followed by comprehension questions, discussion questions, and an activity focusing on the differences and similarities between cats and dogs. This content-packed lesson is useful for helping more advanced English learners refine and improve their English fluency. This lesson is available for free download, and you can download many other ESL lessons for adults like this one in our book ESL Pathways: Frontiers.

ADULT ESL LESSONS: Facts about Cats and Dogs (Text-Only Version)

• Do you know any interesting facts about dogs?
• Do you know any interesting facts about cats?
• Do you know any funny animal stories?
• Do you know why cats sleep so much?
• What else do cats do besides sleeping?
• What do dogs do?
• How fast can dogs run?
• What tricks can dogs and cats do?

Read the following facts about cats and dogs.

Cats get more sleep than almost any other animal.  They average about 16 hours of sleep per day.  Much of that sleeping is in the form of short catnaps.  Catnaps are short shallow periods of sleep that are relaxing to the cat.  Catnaps also allow the cat to be fully alert at a moment’s notice.  Cats spend about 30% of their waking hours grooming themselves.  Cats start grooming themselves following a certain pattern.  They start by licking their mouths, cleaning their faces, moving to the front paws and eventually working their way down to their tails.  

Cats can be trained to use a toilet, come when called, and sit when told.  They can also be trained to heel, jump through a hoop, eat with their paws, roll over, fetch and many other small tricks.  Training a pet takes a lot of patience.  You can tell a cat’s mood by reading its body language.  If a cat is sharply moving its tail in a quick back and forth motion, it’s angry or annoyed.  A cat walking with ears erect and tail straight up is feeling content and satisfied.

Many people believe that dogs are colorblind.  This is not true.  Dogs can see color but they do not see colors as vividly as most humans.  It is much like our vision in the early evening.  Dog experts estimate that some dogs’ sense of smell is almost 1 million times greater than humans.  A dog can sniff out all sorts of smells that human noses miss.  People train dogs for jobs such as tracking, rescue, or bomb detection.  They also train dogs to detect a wide variety of other scents, such as drugs and fruits.

Have you ever wondered why dogs bark?  Barking is sometimes like an alarm.  Dogs bark to tell humans or other dogs that someone or something is near their territory.  Dogs also bark when they are excited, hot, cold or hungry.  Sometimes you will hear a dog howl.  City dogs are often left alone for long periods of time.  They howl because they feel lonely.  Wild dogs howl to gather the other dogs in their pack.

If you have ever seen a dog chase a cat, then you know dogs can run like the wind.  But just how fast are they?  Most domestic dogs are capable of reaching speeds of about nineteen miles per hour when running at full speed.  However, greyhounds are the fastest dogs.  They are able to reach speeds of up to forty-four miles per hour.  Today greyhound racing is a popular betting sport in America and many other countries around the world. 

Comprehension Questions:

1. How many hours a day does a cat sleep?
2. What are catnaps?
3. How do cats spend 30% of their waking hours?
4. What pattern do cats follow when grooming?
5. What can cats be trained to do?
6. How can you tell a cat’s mood?
7. How does a cat feel when its tail is moving sharply back and forth?
8. Are dogs colorblind?
9. How much greater is a dog’s sense of smell than a human’s?
10. What do people train some dogs to do?
11. What are some reasons that dogs bark?
12. Why do some city dogs howl?
13. Why do wild dogs howl?
14. How fast can most domestic dogs run?
15. How fast can greyhounds run?

Discussion Questions:

1. Are there many stray dogs in your neighborhood?
2. Are there many stray cats in you neighborhood?
3. Are stray animals a big problem in your city?
4. What should you do if a dog bites you?
5. Does your city have a dogcatcher?
6. Does it bother you when dogs bark?
7. Do cats bark?  What noises do cats make?
8. Have you ever watched greyhound races?
9. Have you ever watched a horse race?
10. Have you ever seen a cockfight?
11. What do you think about these kinds of games?

12. Are there animal rights groups where you live?
13. Do you consider yourself to be an animal lover?
14. Do you think it would be fun to train a cat or a dog to do tricks?
15. What kinds of tricks would you train a dog or cat to do?  Why?