• Question: what makes certain dogs faster than others?

    Asked by anon-210517 to Tori, Titus, Stuart, Hannah, Gill on 13 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Hannah Dalgleish

      Hannah Dalgleish answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      Probably the way their bones are?

    • Photo: Gill Harrison

      Gill Harrison answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      It’s possibly many factors, such as their breeding (genetics – some dogs have been bred to run faster, by mixing certain breeds over the years), leg length (although my jack Russell was pretty fast despite his little legs), structure and build and who knows what else.

    • Photo: Stuart Higgins

      Stuart Higgins answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      As Gill said, humans have been breeding dogs for particular characteristics for many years. So some breeds are faster because people have wanted fast dogs. The reason how the dogs are faster is a combination of their leg and muscle sizes and how they use them.

      I found a report by some scientists who studied greyhounds, which are ridiculously fast. They found out that greyhounds swing their legs using their hip muscles and save their other muscles for managing the force of hitting the ground. The way they run means they can go faster than other dogs.

      Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/438753a

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