Dog speed.

[Deleted]

Btw: "For the last 30 years, the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells has hoted a 22-mile, man-versus-horse race. Humans have only won the race twice, but top runners usually only finish 10 minutes after the animals. Where horses exceed in oxygen efficiency, humans make up for in temperature regulation. In the beginning of the race the horses tend to have a 30 minute lead, but toward the end, that advantaged is cut to a couple of minutes. Over the course of the race, humans are more efficient at expelling heat—not to mention they aren't running with a rider on their back. On a hot day, humans can win much more easily."

^ biomechanics.com

[bombsonyourmom]

The humans were catching up to the horses despite the horses having a 30 minute lead.

I believe the people actually start running first and then the horses go 15 minutes afterwards. The horses also have vet checks but these minutes are deducted so they don't matter much anyway.

At any rate, the only reason the contests are close is because the horses have several massive handicaps.

The most obvious being the weight of the rider.

According to a quick google search, the average thoroughbred weighs 1000 pounds while the average jockey weighs between 108-118 pounds. So the horse is forced to carry over ten percent of its weight. But weight isn't the only factor. We are weirdly vertical creatures so when a person sits on a horse most of their weight is concentrated in a rather small amount of space. Riding a horse isn't like riding a car. It's murder on a person's thighs and butts even though people have spent thousands of years trying to optimize saddles for human comfort. Now, imagine how the horse who is actually doing the heavy lifting feels. Feeling a 100 pound object bounce up and down your back must really, really suck.

And a rider isn't the only disadvantage. Most people overlook this factor but horses also have to deal with uncomfortable bits being shoved into their mouth. These things would make it more difficult for a horse to cool down via panting and can cause long-term damage.

thehorse.com/136474/bits-and-breathing-whats-the-relationship/

Lastly, the horse doesn't even realize it is competing and has no real desire to win. It's only participating because it's master arbitrarily decided it had to run a lot that day.

However, don't take my word for it. Research has been down on this topic and this is what they concluded:

Yet horses in MvH races are still running more quickly than humans, even on hotter days, all, of course, while carrying a human rider and without it being imperative to survival. And data for wild endurance species such as African wild dogs and grey wolves indicate that they too travel faster while hunting than do humans (Hubel et al., 2016; Mech, 1994), although ambient temperature was not reported. Thus in answer to the question as to whether humans are comparatively well adapted to endurance running at high temperatures, the evidence suggests no – in absolute terms, even in the heat humans are not fast runners.

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/EP088502

Now make then race for 50 miles instead of 20-27 miles. Haha.

According to wikipedia the foot racers actually complained when the track was extended.

The 2013 race attracted an entry of 65 horses, with 44 completing the course, enabling it to lay claim to being "the world's largest horse race". Following a number of criticisms of the extended course in 2013 and 2014, the course for 2015 was shortened back towards 21 miles. This provided a more even match between man and equine, with Geoffrey Allen on Leo emerging victorious by just over 10 minutes from Hugh Aggleton. It was Allen's 4th outright win, and his 5th time as first horseman, having been beaten by Florian Holzinger in 2007

It's honestly kind of funny how much the racers complain about fairness when they are effectively going up against unmotivated, handicapped, slaves.

As I mentioned earlier, we already know how horses performed over long distances compared to humans.

Shaka Zulu's foot based army could march 50 miles a day. Keep in mind that these guys travelled light, had no armor and almost no clothes to speak off, and this claim might be exaggerated.

In contrast the fairly small ponies the mongols rode on would travel 60 to 100 miles a day. Remember these horses are carrying people that are over ten percent of their weight and a lot of the dudes riding them would have been armored. On top of this, horses eat low nutrient grass so they have to spend several hours a day grazing whereas a person can eat what they need in 20 or 30 minutes. And yet, despite all these handicaps the horses are beating Shaka's guys.

www.historyonthenet.com/the-mongol-empires-best-weapon-the-mongolian-horse

And huskies can also only run for such long distances in very cold climates.

Huskies were built and bred in cold climates, so expecting them to run in hot temperatures is a bit silly. If you shaved a husky naked it would destroy a human in race even in mild or hot temperatures.

Furthermore, human's ability to cool down might help a lot in a long distance run but being able to outlast other animals in extremely hot conditions is not proof that we are better runners it just shows that we're better at getting excessive. They are prevail because of the climate, not because they have more stamina.

For instance, a human might be able to beat a fresh water fish in an long distance ocean swimming race, but not because they are better swimmers, but because the fish died from all the salt in its system.

Humans evolved to specifically be able to chase down animals in the savannahs until they could run no longer. That is the purpose of our lack of hair. It is common sense.

People really overstate how often ancient humans actually did this. If you look at the fossil record the animals that humans really loved to hunt where the big slow ones that couldn't get away from their spears or arrows. That's why mammoths and ground sloths went bye-bye.

Canines are built to hound their prey no matter what condition. When people compete in marathons they have to take time to recover. I am not familiar with marathon running but I think runners need to rest a week on average.

Canines do not get that luxury. They have to run down prey nearly every day to survive. And even when they catch up to their prey, they have to bite it to death, while a human hunter can usually fatally would an animal with one good spear throw.

Edit: The study I posted also points out that even the few tribes that use persistence hunting are moving away from it because it sucks and a lot of them use dogs and horses to help them.

While the sport of endurance running is participated in worldwide, persistence hunting is a dying art. Hunter–gatherers in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, for example, have shifted away from a significant dependence on hunting in all forms (Marshall Thomas, 2006). Those that continue to hunt often utilize dogs and horses to improve efficiency (Liebenberg, 2006) – bow-and-arrow and pure persistence hunting have become increasingly obsolete there and elsewhere (Liebenberg, 2013).

[Hardcastle]

Aug 23, 2023 19:15:12 GMT bombsonyourmom said:

It might be a good idea to make this thread a general dog running thread since a dogs greatest strength is their endurance rather than raw speed.

Recently I noticed a lot of people have tried to push this idea that humas are the best endurance runners (probably because they are sick of being told how weak humans are) and are only beaten by huskies but that is nonsense. Humans might have above average stamina but are feet and legs are poorly designed. Persistence hunting only works in extremely hot conditions and even then the hunters have to carry a lot of water with them otherwise they will get a heat stroke and die.

Running down prey is a canine/hyena's bread and butter strategy. Regardless of the weather conditions they just have to suck it up and run.

Even dogs breeds that aren't running specialists are better endurance runners than humans. There was a story of a lazy blood hound that got 7th place on a marathon. Keep in mind that this dog wasn't really trying and was constantly distracted. According to other articles she romped in puddles and ate a road kill rabbit. The owner also claimed that her dog normally is very inactive and rarely runs.



I am not super knowledgeable on dogs, but I imagine scent hounds are not that fast by design. A hunter probably doesn't want their tracker to leave them in the dust.

Any idea how long dogs can maintain their top speeds? According to some sources, ostriches maintain speeds of 60 kilometer per hour for over 20 minutes.

Ostriches in particular are acknowledged as excellent long-endurance runners, capable of running with a speed of 60 km/h for durations exceeding twenty minutes while reaching peak velocities up to 80 km/h – surpassing the locomotor abilities of their ratite relatives. Documentation of this performance is presented by Alexander et al. (1979

archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/8852/1/Schaller_Dis.pdf

Unlike most animals speed estimates, info on ostrich running ability are probably accurate because biologists are jealous of how efficient the ostrich leg and foot design is and have done a lot of research on the topic. When it comes to long distance running ratite are probably the best since they have an energy efficient gait and a unidirectional breathing system.


Just remembered this crazy video: 

Have lots to say, but first;
Someone asked why the European brown hare was in my top 10 animals. ^ There you go.

[Deleted]

Aug 23, 2023 22:39:12 GMT bombsonyourmom said:

The humans were catching up to the horses despite the horses having a 30 minute lead.

I believe the people actually start running first and then the horses go 15 minutes afterwards. The horses also have vet checks but these minutes are deducted so they don't matter much anyway.

At any rate, the only reason the contests are close is because the horses have several massive handicaps.

The most obvious being the weight of the rider.

According to a quick google search, the average thoroughbred weighs 1000 pounds while the average jockey weighs between 108-118 pounds. So the horse is forced to carry over ten percent of its weight. But weight isn't the only factor. We are weirdly vertical creatures so when a person sits on a horse most of their weight is concentrated in a rather small amount of space. Riding a horse isn't like riding a car. It's murder on a person's thighs and butts even though people have spent thousands of years trying to optimize saddles for human comfort. Now, imagine how the horse who is actually doing the heavy lifting feels. Feeling a 100 pound object bounce up and down your back must really, really suck.

And a rider isn't the only disadvantage. Most people overlook this factor but horses also have to deal with uncomfortable bits being shoved into their mouth. These things would make it more difficult for a horse to cool down via panting and can cause long-term damage.

thehorse.com/136474/bits-and-breathing-whats-the-relationship/

Lastly, the horse doesn't even realize it is competing and has no real desire to win. It's only participating because it's master arbitrarily decided it had to run a lot that day.

However, don't take my word for it. Research has been down on this topic and this is what they concluded:

Yet horses in MvH races are still running more quickly than humans, even on hotter days, all, of course, while carrying a human rider and without it being imperative to survival. And data for wild endurance species such as African wild dogs and grey wolves indicate that they too travel faster while hunting than do humans (Hubel et al., 2016; Mech, 1994), although ambient temperature was not reported. Thus in answer to the question as to whether humans are comparatively well adapted to endurance running at high temperatures, the evidence suggests no – in absolute terms, even in the heat humans are not fast runners.

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/EP088502

Now make then race for 50 miles instead of 20-27 miles. Haha.

According to wikipedia the foot racers actually complained when the track was extended.

The 2013 race attracted an entry of 65 horses, with 44 completing the course, enabling it to lay claim to being "the world's largest horse race". Following a number of criticisms of the extended course in 2013 and 2014, the course for 2015 was shortened back towards 21 miles. This provided a more even match between man and equine, with Geoffrey Allen on Leo emerging victorious by just over 10 minutes from Hugh Aggleton. It was Allen's 4th outright win, and his 5th time as first horseman, having been beaten by Florian Holzinger in 2007

It's honestly kind of funny how much the racers complain about fairness when they are effectively going up against unmotivated, handicapped, slaves.

As I mentioned earlier, we already know how horses performed over long distances compared to humans.

Shaka Zulu's foot based army could march 50 miles a day. Keep in mind that these guys travelled light, had no armor and almost no clothes to speak off, and this claim might be exaggerated.

In contrast the fairly small ponies the mongols rode on would travel 60 to 100 miles a day. Remember these horses are carrying people that are over ten percent of their weight and a lot of the dudes riding them would have been armored. On top of this, horses eat low nutrient grass so they have to spend several hours a day grazing whereas a person can eat what they need in 20 or 30 minutes. And yet, despite all these handicaps the horses are beating Shaka's guys.

www.historyonthenet.com/the-mongol-empires-best-weapon-the-mongolian-horse

And huskies can also only run for such long distances in very cold climates.

Huskies were built and bred in cold climates, so expecting them to run in hot temperatures is a bit silly. If you shaved a husky naked it would destroy a human in race even in mild or hot temperatures.

Furthermore, human's ability to cool down might help a lot in a long distance run but being able to outlast other animals in extremely hot conditions is not proof that we are better runners it just shows that we're better at getting excessive. They are prevail because of the climate, not because they have more stamina.

For instance, a human might be able to beat a fresh water fish in an long distance ocean swimming race, but not because they are better swimmers, but because the fish died from all the salt in its system.

Humans evolved to specifically be able to chase down animals in the savannahs until they could run no longer. That is the purpose of our lack of hair. It is common sense.

People really overstate how often ancient humans actually did this. If you look at the fossil record the animals that humans really loved to hunt where the big slow ones that couldn't get away from their spears or arrows. That's why mammoths and ground sloths went bye-bye.

Canines are built to hound their prey no matter what condition. When people compete in marathons they have to take time to recover. I am not familiar with marathon running but I think runners need to rest a week on average.

Canines do not get that luxury. They have to run down prey nearly every day to survive. And even when they catch up to their prey, they have to bite it to death, while a human hunter can usually fatally would an animal with one good spear throw.

Edit: The study I posted also points out that even the few tribes that use persistence hunting are moving away from it because it sucks and a lot of them use dogs and horses to help them.

While the sport of endurance running is participated in worldwide, persistence hunting is a dying art. Hunter–gatherers in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, for example, have shifted away from a significant dependence on hunting in all forms (Marshall Thomas, 2006). Those that continue to hunt often utilize dogs and horses to improve efficiency (Liebenberg, 2006) – bow-and-arrow and pure persistence hunting have become increasingly obsolete there and elsewhere (Liebenberg, 2013).

I would reply to this... but to be honest... I can't be bothered. I've been pretty lackluster recently. I actually don't think that I've had a good AvA debate in months.

Maybe Hardcastle can make a good argument. He's a better debater than I am.

[Hardcastle]

Don't even know where to start on this discussion but I like it a lot so will do my best.

Think I'm somewhere in between you guys on the human front. I think humans really are elite long-distance runners by design, especially the original pre-dog humans.
These people have extremely acute vision specifically to spot vague subtle clues in the landscape which betray where the animal was running (broken grass, scuffs in the dirt, etc, it's actually uncanny stuff), and they can jog for extremely long distances "tracking" animals by sight using this ability. Ofcourse, this isn't the animal most of us are anymore, new variations of human have emerged adapted to totally different lifestyles; stealth/stalking with bow and arrow, following dogs, sled dog mushing and ice-fishing, hunting on horseback, forest gardening, cropping, nomadic herding, pastoralism, etc etc, all lifestyles that shifted certain lineages of human into a different animal from the persistence pursuit/ocular tracking specialist, and all have diminished running stamina as it became relatively redundant. These people need to train in rather unnatural ways to be able to run these distances, and still get schooled by the people that actually evolved to do it- see kenyans and ethiopians, for example, even if the latter have lesser training.

But they are weirdly slow, so any animal that CAN jog a good distance will beat them over that distance. I think lots of herbivores and canines can beat humans over pretty good distances but we may start reeling many of those in when we start getting to marathon - ultra marathon distances.

I think wolves and many dogs would have us over a marathon, and horses IMO and wildebeest and etc. Start pushing up to ultra marathon distances, like 100 miles and 200 miles and 600 miles and etc, and you may find a lot of these fall away. In the end you are gonna probably only be left with iditarod dogs (mongrels called "alaskan huskies") and ultra marathon running humans.

That's what I believe, could be wrong. But when I investigate contenders, like Wildebeest for example who do migrate up to 1000 miles a year, it is not a continuous running event or even anything like that, and it seems like they couldn't actually run an ultra marathon over 200 or 600 mile or anything like that. I think people and dogs would beat them. A marathon? 26 miles? I think they could beat humans, maybe dogs too.
If you could train wildebeests for ultra marathons and somehow instill the motivation into them? Who knows. But it's important to remember when you say "they have no motivation, so they don't do it, but if they wanted to they could", that is not really logical. If they don't do it, they can't. They are adapted to run certain distances, so their evolution has shaped them for that. You could only push the limits so much. To push it a lot would require special training, and better yet breeding as well.

Excluding all special training and special breeding, talking about natural animals only, the persistence hunting humans of east africa are probably genuinely up there among the best. And wolves are too. Wolves naturally do a marathon basically every day, and then occassionally have been known to do double or even triple marathons in a day. That is a fairly rare level of long-distance running specialisation in the natural animal kingdom.

We should not confuse this kind of super long distance running with sustained sprinting ability. That's a different thing. A wolf can't sprint full speed for longer than about 400 metres. In fact that will pull up most animals (including humans). Even elite stamina long-distance animals animals have severe limitations on sprinting because sprinting engages fast twitch muscles that can't process oxygen so they get wore out, burn with lactic acid and need rest, in a similar amount of time as you could hold your breath. That is if you are super super fit.

Sustained sprinters are a different branch of athletes compared to marathon/ulta-marathon runners. Totally different physiological demands.

I'm glad ratites were mentioned by bombsonyourmom. Ratites are elite sustained sprinters, the ostrich is great and the rhea is probably even better. Hares and jackrabbits are incredible as well, and sighthounds. The pronghorn is another special animal here, and so are some other antelopes (even though the pronghorn is technically not a real antelope, it is a trait shared by certain antelopes). Equids, including specialised horses and wild asses are decent as well. I suspect african wild dogs are PRETTY good here, better than wolves anyway.

Sighthounds at least a confirmed to have a different type of fast twitch muscle to other animals, fast twitch "type 2b" which can process oxygen while under intense exertion. The ratites and pronghorn and etc must have something similar going on, thugh I've never seen data on it. Even so, these extreme sustained sprinters can only push up to a mile or 2 of sprinting, which is in itself crazy but you need to understand it is definitely nothing like the distances for long-distance runners and the skills don't translate to one another (even though there is some overlap with generalised animal types like "dogs" and "horses", it is different types of dogs and horses good at each discipline).

[bombsonyourmom]

@hardcastle

I have a few points I would like to address:

If you could train wildebeests for ultra marathons and somehow instill the motivation into them? Who knows. But it's important to remember when you say "they have no motivation, so they don't do it, but if they wanted to they could", that is not really logical. If they don't do it, they can't. They are adapted to run certain distances, so their evolution has shaped them for that. You could only push the limits so much. To push it a lot would require special training, and better yet breeding as well.

The problem with animal research is that it is difficult to test the limits of a wild animal without doing so really messed up crap. There are very few scenarios where a wildebeest needs to run for half a day, it will have either lost its predator at that point or would have gotten killed and eaten.

However, just because this scenario is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it's not capable of doing that.

For instance, recently polar bears have been recorded to swim for 9 days straight. Polar bears may be used to swimming but for most of their evolutionary history these absurd swimming marathons probably almost never occurred. But now because of climate change and a lack of accessible food, polar bears are being forced to test their stamina to the limits.

www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/110720-polar-bears-global-warming-sea-ice-science-environment

Even if it's true that a trained human runner can beat a regular wildebeest in an ultramarathon I don't think we have the right to call ourselves one of the best endurance runners in the world when these records are being set by a very select few people.

I imagine Eddie Hall is stronger than a leopard, but just because that genetic freak out nature who spends hours working out and takes a bunch of steroids can outmuscle a leopard or a mild-sized black bear doesn't mean humans can mooch off his achievement and declare that we're stronger than leopards or 200 pound black bears.

One thing people take for granted is how many people exist especially compared to decent sized wild animals. According humans make like 1/3rd of the world's mammalian biomass. The only animals that beat us are the livestock that we raise. People consider deer common as dirty but their only about 35 million of them in the USA compared to the 331 people that live in the US.

Because of our huge population we are more likely to produce genetic freaks. Just look at the math, 0.01 percent of 8 billion is 800,000. In total terms we have a lot of individuals that qualify as the cream of the crop but in reality these champion athletes are rare compared to the average person and have far more physical potential. It feels a tad unfair to try to use Dean Karnazes's accomplishments to prove our alleged endurance running ability when the vast majority of people would never be able to replicate what he did.

We should not confuse this kind of super long distance running with sustained sprinting ability. That's a different thing. A wolf can't sprint full speed for longer than about 400 metres. In fact that will pull up most animals (including humans). Even elite stamina long-distance animals animals have severe limitations on sprinting because sprinting engages fast twitch muscles that can't process oxygen so they get wore out, burn with lactic acid and need rest, in a similar amount of time as you could hold your breath. That is if you are super super fit.

I don't see why a decent breed of dog wouldn't be able to maintain a 5mph trot longer than a human can jog at a similar speeds when they can sprint for longer durations.

I don't know much about human running but I don't think athletes like Usain Bolt, or even marathon runners can maintain high speeds for more than a minute, whereas dogs can clearly run at high speeds for several minutes.

I'm glad ratites were mentioned by bombsonyourmom. Ratites are elite sustained sprinters, the ostrich is great and the rhea is probably even better. Hares and jackrabbits are incredible as well, and sighthounds. The pronghorn is another special animal here, and so are some other antelopes (even though the pronghorn is technically not a real antelope, it is a trait shared by certain antelopes). Equids, including specialised horses and wild asses are decent as well. I suspect african wild dogs are PRETTY good here, better than wolves anyway.

Sighthounds at least a confirmed to have a different type of fast twitch muscle to other animals, fast twitch "type 2b" which can process oxygen while under intense exertion. The ratites and pronghorn and etc must have something similar going on, thugh I've never seen data on it. Even so, these extreme sustained sprinters can only push up to a mile or 2 of sprinting, which is in itself crazy but you need to understand it is definitely nothing like the distances for long-distance runners and the skills don't translate to one another (even though there is some overlap with generalised animal types like "dogs" and "horses", it is different types of dogs and horses good at each discipline).

I don't know if ratites have special muscles but they have long strides and their tendons are twice as efficient as ours.

Australian and U.S. researchers studying the movement of ostriches have discovered the giant flightless birds can store double the elastic energy per step in their tendons than humans can. This considerably reduces the effort needed by the muscles, and enables the ostrich (and perhaps also the emu) to run twice as fast as humans while requiring only half the energy.

phys.org/news/2010-10-ostriches-fast-springy-tendons.html

To circle back on dogs, I think it is presumptuous to assume huskies and malamutes have the most stamina out of all the dog breeds. No doubt they are high up there but most other breeds haven't gotten the chance to be tested. Huskies and malamutes just happened to produced in one of the few climates where travelling by dog sled was an efficient way for people to move. Very possible there is another breed/specific mix that has even greater potential for long distance running but people just have not realized it

[Hardcastle]

Aug 24, 2023 18:58:29 GMT bombsonyourmom said:

To circle back on dogs, I think it is presumptuous to assume huskies and malamutes have the most stamina out of all the dog breeds. No doubt they are high up there but most other breeds haven't gotten the chance to be tested. Huskies and malamutes just happened to produced in one of the few climates where travelling by dog sled was an efficient way for people to move. Very possible there is another breed/specific mix that has even greater potential for long distance running but people just have not realized it

Just have a little bit of time so cherry picking one point that is easy to address.

"Alaskan huskies" aren't huskies, really. They are performance bred mongrels with various breeds/types combined to make the most elite long distance racers possible. You are correct that huskies and malamutes aren't the most elite long distance runners. Collies can travel further in a day, pointers can run at higher intensity and have far superior v02 max, it seems scenthound and sighthound can add benefits as well. In the end the dogs bred and used to be successful in the iditarod (the longest most competitive dog race, 1000 miles in length) are mish mash of types and don't really look like huskies, but they get called "alaskan huskies" (though they are typically partially husky in some small percentage).



We can be pretty sure these guys have it pretty well figured out, they take it fairly seriously and the sport has been going a while.

[bombsonyourmom]

That's interesting. It's true that when money is involved people will do their best to optimize their strat. Still, I think it's possible even those breeders might have overlooked a dog breed. There are a lot of them after all. I also wonder if the cold temperatures caused them to overlook dog breeds built for warmer climates.

[Hardcastle]

I'd love to pick the brains of the breeders behind iditarod racing dogs to get more specific details, haven't been able to track any info "out of the horse's mouth", but I have heard second hand that lots of breeds went into them with seemingly no aversion to warm-weather breeds. Saluki, Ridgeback, Coonhound, Foxhound, collie and pointer have all been mentioned here and there.

[Hardcastle]

More iditarod dog photos, feel like I can see clues of some pretty interesting breeds here and there-







Funny to think these goofballs might be the most elite endurance athletes the world has ever seen.

[bombsonyourmom]

Any thoughts on dobermans? I know they are inbred as hell but I think they look awesome and they can be fast.



I don't care about genetic purity. Is it possible to produce a dog that looks very similar to a doberman but can run nearly as well as greyhound? Are they any sighthound dobie mixes that retain most of the doberman's distinctive looks?

Also just for fun:

Boxer vs guy on bike



Retired track athlete vs chihuahua.

[Hardcastle]

Aug 26, 2023 23:36:11 GMT bombsonyourmom said:

Any thoughts on dobermans? I know they are inbred as hell but I think they look awesome and they can be fast.



I don't care about genetic purity. Is it possible to produce a dog that looks very similar to a doberman but can run nearly as well as greyhound? Are they any sighthound dobie mixes that retain most of the doberman's distinctive looks?

Also just for fun:

Boxer vs guy on bike



Retired track athlete vs chihuahua.

Not a fan of dobermans, but they can be fast. In your "fast cat fastest dog" link a few pop over 30mph, which seems to be the "sound barrier" which only distinctly "fast dogs" break.
A greyhound x doberman would be a huge improvement on the breed IMO. Just kind of pull it all into functional shape.

[CoolJohnson]

Does any body know the speed of feral or street dogs?

I have seen some videos of leopards outpacing street dogs in a few short bursts.

 



Here is a leopard catching up to a stray dog before changing direction to knock down the guy in the motorcycle at around 0:12 of the video.

[Hardcastle]

Sept 3, 2023 5:19:04 GMT CoolJohnson said:

Does any body know the speed of feral or street dogs?

I have seen some videos of leopards outpacing street dogs in a few short bursts.

 



Here is a leopard catching up to a stray dog before changing direction to knock down the guy in the motorcycle at around 0:12 of the video.

Well using that original link as a guide we can get a fairly decent idea by checking various basic generic breeds of pariah/spitz/herder types and you'll notice they are mostly maxing around 24-27 mph. But there's a lot of individual variation as well, some individuals from those breeds might be way slower, down around 16 mph, and the odd individual might be up to just over 30 mph. That seems to be where the fastest individuals from breeds like canaan dog and kai ken and basenji and etc get to. It could be argued the malinois is kinda built like a street dog and there is a 35 mph malinois, but that is basically a super athlete. A street dog is more likely to be under 30, and MAYBE some fast ones just at 30, maybe. But 24-27 mph would be the most common speeds they could run.
I used to have a speedometer on a mountain bike and would get chased by some neighbourhood pet dogs; collies and heelers and etc, and I found most can keep up at 40 kmph, which was about as fast as I could possibly go unless I went down a hill. Down a hill at 45 kmph it seems I started reaching a speed they couldn't catch up, maybe JUST keep pace, maybe not depending on the dog.
That seems to align with these results. 44-45 kmph is about 27 mph, and that seems to be where most normal dogs are at. I'd say street dogs are right there as well.
A "very fast dog" can go about 33-37 mph, or 55 - 60 kmph. 37-45 mph or 60 - 72 kmph is actual elite sprinter, only sighthounds will be in this zone, and even pet sighthounds won't necessarily run this fast.

I think my dogs right now are probably only 29 mph or so. Maybe peaked at 30-31 a year or two ago. They are actually very close to one another despite being very different types (kelpie and bull arab). They are faster than most dogs, but nothing crazy. My fastest dog was bones, a racey greyhound-ian bull arab and he was blisteringly fast (especially when young), I have little doubt he could go 35 mph. My bandogs were probably 25 mph. Ralph would have been 29-30.

If I was going to hazard a guess with leopards I'd speculate it would be a rare leopard to reach 35 mph, but some probably could. The "figures" given for leopards on the net seem to suggest 35 mph as well but then some get excited and push them up to 40 mph. I sincerely doubt that. In fact I think most would accelerate to 30-32 mph max most of the time, but 35 seems plausible when factoring in individual variation.

[bombsonyourmom]

Cats are faster in short bursts. I can't find the video because the youtube search algorithm has turned into complete dog shit but there was a video of a cougar outrunning a pair of wolves.

There is also this neat video of a leopard stealing an impala before a hyena could get to it and bolting up a tree.



Seriously though, I hate the current owners of youtube. I used to have a great system for finding new wildlife footage but because of those fucktards my old methods no longer work. I can't use the minus function to filter out terms I don't want. I can't use quotations to highlight certain terms and now have the search results are totally irrelevant.