This question came up while I was in the Ape Equality: A Very Bad Idea thread over in GD. Rather than derail that thread, I thought it would be better to make a separate discussion here.
So, most people that have dogs are familiar with their brief bouts of standing up on two legs (if the dogs in question are anything like the ones I have owned, they do this largely because they are angling for a treat, those little beggars). But it started me thinking:
When human babies are born, their first mobility is very much on all fours. However, over time, they learn how to stand up on two legs. At first, they can only sustain this for a short time, but after a while, their muscles develop to where they can stand for more extended periods. Granted, dogs have a very different muscular structure than humans; however, I am wondering whether, given training, a dog may in fact be able to stay up on two legs for an extended period of time.
I couldn’t really find any articles that discuss this specific topic, but someone with either a better base of knowledge or better Google skillz than mine might be able to easily dispatch this idea. My general experience is that if anyone knows, someone on the SMDB knows… so, anyone?
Not quite a dog, but while we’re at it, my mom used to have a cat living with her (I won’t make any claims as to who owned whom), whose hind legs were malformed from a birth defect. She walked on her two front legs, with her butt balanced up in the air. She could walk pretty much indefinitely, but I don’t think she was able to stand still (she always sat when stopped).
My family adopted a dog, once, a little old poodle. He had all four legs, and he wasn’t crippled, but he had a habit of…well…
He liked to pee standing up. On his two front legs.
He’d just sort of…hop up onto a handstand to do his business, then lower back down when he was done. He didn’t just balance in place, either…he could (and often would) walk around a bit while doing it—he took a strange liking to circling around a portable electric heater, on his front paws, peeing on it. I came to believe that it was some kind of bizarre, primitive form of idol worship.
Agreed. I especially liked the photo (on Snopes) of the little kid staring big-eyed at Faith as he walked by.
However, this – “Faith’s owner Jude Strongfellow has resigned from her teaching career so she can dedicate to taking Faith on a round-the-world entourage, to showcase to the world that one can have a perfect soul without a perfect body.” – is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read. :rolleyes: It just turns a cool story into glurge. I would have liked to see some more photos, but no way I’m going to Faith’s website if that’s an example of the kind of stuff I’ll find there.
Absolutely. But… is it just me that wants to dress her up in a little jacket with, you know, dummy arms attached, so she looks like a weird dog-headed midget?
But the dummy arms should be poseable, so you can maybe put a newspaper in them, or a cell phone, or a couple of fake pistols, held sideways, gangster-style!
My dog Daisy did this as well, after his back end got hit by a car. He refused to do it while he knew anyone was looking, but if you peeked out the window at the right time, you could catch him running around on those front legs, peeing all over the place.
