The column doesn’t quite answer the question, although it casts a great deal of light on it. Is it the case, then, that a given dog does both, at different times, in the manner that horses have different gaits that they use under the appropriate circumstances? Or are some dogs trotters and others always pacers?
Re: the report on dog gaits…I just want to throw in some additional trivia:
Camels generally pace.
I had a dog that would switch back and forth – so the underlying assumption (that some dogs pace, some dogs trot) is inherently flawed. An individual dog can do both.
If you note how you swing your arms when you walk – humans trot (ie, your right arm moves in conjunction with your left foot).
My dogs do both. I have seven so I have a valid observation.
All of them are inclined to walk using both left then right at a pretty slow pace. Speeding up calls up better coordination so they alternate left right left right.
What was left out is their super speed pace, front legs alternate but Both rear legs move completely together as a single leg might.
Merged the thread started in Comments on Staff Reports with the one started in Comments on Cecil’s Columns. Moved resulting thread to CoCC.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
Well, actually standardbred horses are categorized as either trotters or pacers. Pacers are more common, partly because you can harness the legs to keep the horses on gait (going off-gait means the horse has to be pulled up until he goes back, and bettors don’t like that).
That’s right. I’m not a horseman, but my town has a perimutual track that runs standardbreds most of the year, then thoroughbreds in the fall. Some of our readers might not know the standardbreds pull a driver on a sulky, while the thoroughbreds carry a jockey on the horse’s back. That’s what Prof. Harold Hill meant when he was outraged by the idea of “some stuck-up jockey-boy sittin’ on Dan Patch.” Dan Patch was history’s most famous standardbred horse, and there’s a monument to him at the track.