# Symmetrical Gaits of Dogs in Relation to Body Build

> Does a Basset Hound walk like a Great Dane? Filming 37 dog breeds in slow motion, Milton Hildebrand found that long-legged dogs walk with the feet on each side more closely paired, while short-legged dogs space their footfalls evenly, and that only some long-legged dogs pace. He also showed why many dogs trot with their body angled to one side: to keep their hind feet from striking their forefeet.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1968-hildebrand-symmetrical-gaits-dogs-relation/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Milton Hildebrand
- **Year published:** 1968
- **Journal or source:** Journal of Morphology
- **Full citation:** Hildebrand, M. 1968. Symmetrical gaits of dogs in relation to body build. Journal of Morphology 124(3): 353–360.
- **DOI:** 10.1002/jmor.1051240308
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.1051240308

## Tags

- **Species:** Mammals > Domestic dog
- **Region:** North America > United States
- **Tracking:** Gaits
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Movement
- **Methods and technology:** Body-size comparison; Mann–Whitney U test
- **Data type:** Existing data; New field data
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology
- **Year published:** 1968

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: domestic dog (37 breeds: Afghan Hound, Basenji, Basset Hound, Belgian Tervuren, Bloodhound, Boxer, Chihuahua, Chow Chow, Collie, Dachshund, Dalmatian, Doberman Pinscher, English Bulldog, English Springer Spaniel, Fox Terrier, French Bulldog, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Great Dane, Great Pyrenees, Irish Setter, Irish Wolfhound, Keeshond, Lakeland Terrier, Papillon, Pekingese, Poodle, Pug, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Russian Wolfhound, Saint Bernard, Saluki, Samoyed, Shetland Sheepdog, Weimaraner, Welsh Corgi and Whippet). Compared with: four other Canis species (Canis aureus, Canis dingo, Canis latrans, Canis macrotis), and three other canid genera (Lycaon, Nyctereutes, Urocyon), including a slowly moving coyote, a semi-tame dingo on a leash and the raccoon-dog (Nyctereutes); and the author’s records for other tetrapods of 158 genera. Also mentioned: horses (Standardbred harness horses), camelids, primates and monkeys, rabbit, squirrel, mouse and weasel.
- **Location and habitat:** Filmed mostly at dog shows in California, United States. Part of the film came from the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film, Göttingen (Germany); where that film was made is not stated.
- **Topics:** symmetrical gaits (walks, running walk, trot, pace); gait-formulas; body build and leg length; lateral-couplets, single-foot and diagonal-couplets gaits; lateral-sequence and diagonal-sequence gaits; the pace in long-legged animals; interference between fore and hind feet at the trot; turning the body from the line of travel when trotting; relative duration of fore and hind foot contacts; support-sequences; individual variation in gait. Inconsistency in the paper: the text names 17 long-legged breeds (16 used in the walking analysis plus the Whippet), while the caption of Figure 1 says 19 breeds of long-legged dogs; two long-legged breeds are not named. Figure 4’s caption says “football” where “footfall” is meant.
- **Statistics or models:** Gait-formulas (two percentages per gait: how long each hind foot is on the ground as a percentage of the stride, and the timing of forefoot footfalls relative to the hind feet), averaged over two to seven (mean 3.1) consecutive strides; Mann–Whitney U test comparing long-legged and short-legged breeds at the walk; ranges and means of fore and hind foot contact durations; visual inspection of plots.
- **Data type:** New field data: 16 mm film shot for the study at 64 frames per second, mostly at dog shows in California (dates not given). Existing data: 430 feet of film from the Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film, Göttingen, shot at 72 frames per second; and the author’s earlier gait records for other tetrapods. In total 1410 feet of film and 240 gait-formulas for dogs.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Walks, the running walk, the trot and the pace are called symmetrical gaits, because the two feet of a pair (the two forefeet, or the two hind feet) strike the ground at even intervals. From his earlier work, Hildebrand had noticed that among wild mammals, long-legged species tend to swing the legs on the same side of the body more nearly together when walking than short-legged species do. He wanted to test this idea within a single species with a very wide range of body build: the domestic dog.

- Filming. He analysed 1410 feet of 16 mm slow-motion film of 37 dog breeds. Most was filmed for the study at dog shows in California; 430 feet came from a film institute in Göttingen.

- Gait-formulas. For each performance he calculated a gait-formula: how long each hind foot stays on the ground as a share of the stride, and how the forefeet’s footfalls are timed relative to the hind feet. Each formula averaged two to seven consecutive strides. He had 240 formulas for dogs.

- Grouping by body build. There were no measurements of leg length relative to spine length for dog breeds, so he sorted breeds by eye into long-legged, middle and short-legged groups. He left out the middle group (33 formulas for 9 breeds) to avoid errors in judging.

- Comparisons. He compared walking gaits of long-legged and short-legged breeds, looked at which dogs pace, measured how long forefeet and hind feet stay on the ground, described the support-sequences (which feet carry the weight from moment to moment), and compared dogs with other canids and other four-legged animals.

### 2. What they found

Dogs compared with other animals

- All 240 dog gait-formulas fell within a defined area of his graph. His 21 formulas for four other Canis species and formulas for three other canid genera fell in the same area, except one for a very slowly moving coyote and two for a semi-tame dingo straining at its leash.

- The symmetrical gaits of canids resemble those of other carnivores of similar size and build.

- Dogs do not usually walk slower than shown on his graph, and usually pace and trot no faster than a slow run, tending to break into a gallop at higher speeds.

Walking and body build

- Long-legged breeds tended to use lateral-couplets gaits at the moderate walk (the hind foot and forefoot on the same side land close together in time). Short-legged breeds tended to use single-foot gaits (all four footfalls evenly spaced).

- This difference was highly significant (Mann–Whitney U test). It was least marked at slow speeds.

- He suggests that long-legged dogs carrying or pulling loads tend to use the walking gaits of short-legged breeds, which are a little more stable.

The pace

- No short-legged dog was seen to pace, and only one used a lateral-couplets walk.

- A true pace was recorded in the Bloodhound, German Shepherd and Golden Retriever. Gaits so close to the pace that a lay observer would likely call them a pace were seen in the Bloodhound, Collie, Great Dane, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Saluki and Weimaraner. Only certain individual dogs of these breeds pace.

- Animals that pace (camelids, certain horses and dogs) are all long-legged. A long-legged build seems to let an animal support itself on the two legs of one side without its body tending to roll.

How long the feet stay on the ground

- At the walk, forefoot contacts lasted 86% to 109% of hind foot contacts (90 records); on average they were equal.

- At the pace, forefoot contacts lasted 99% to 116% of hind foot contacts, averaging 106% (17 records). Few dogs were involved, so this is tentative.

- At the trot, forefoot contacts ranged from 77% to 114% of hind foot contacts (46 records), averaging 93% in long-legged dogs and 97% in short-legged dogs. He judged the difference unlikely to be biologically meaningful, but trotting dogs probably keep their hind feet down slightly longer than their forefeet.

The trot

- Trotting formulas (80, evenly divided between long-legged and short-legged breeds) did not differ between the two groups.

- Most dogs swing diagonally opposite legs together or nearly so when trotting. Some performances were transitional towards other gaits.

- Many dogs turn their bodies slightly from the line of travel when trotting. Otherwise, the hind feet would strike the forefeet. How much this matters depends on speed and body build; long-legged animals are most prone to this interference. Many smaller mammals (rabbit, squirrel, mouse, weasel) avoid it by placing each hind foot outside the forefoot; trotting dogs instead pass both hind feet to the same side of the forefeet. He did not detect the slight unevenness in footfall spacing and timing that this causes in some primates.

Variation

- The second figure of the gait-formula usually varied by 5 to 10 points between performances of the same dog, sometimes more. This is somewhat more individual variation than he had reported for horses. In general, the smaller and more agile the animal, the more its gait varies.

### 3. What they concluded

- The link between body build and walking gait seen across wild mammals also holds within the domestic dog: long-legged dogs walk with the feet on each side more closely paired in time, short-legged dogs with evenly spaced footfalls.

- Pacing is a gait of long-legged animals, and only some individual dogs of long-legged breeds use it. More observation will likely add more breeds to the list.

- Many dogs angle their bodies when trotting to avoid hitting their forefeet with their hind feet.

- Support-sequences deserve less emphasis than they once received.

- He notes that dog owners recognise breed differences in carriage and leg movement, which may be worth study but are not covered here.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Slow-motion 16 mm film (64 and 72 frames per second, against normal speeds of 16 to 24) analysed frame by frame.

- Hildebrand’s numerical and graphical method for analysing symmetrical gaits, with traced silhouettes from film frames showing 13 dogs at their measured gait-formulas.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Gait choice depends on body build as well as speed, so dogs of different breeds moving at a similar speed may leave different track patterns.

- A trotting dog often angles its body, so the hind feet land to one side of the forefeet rather than on top of them. This sideways trot is a familiar track pattern for trackers, and the paper explains why it happens.

- Pacing is rare and limited to some individual long-legged dogs, so a pacing pattern in dog tracks may say something about the individual animal and not just the breed.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Symmetrical Gaits of Dogs in Relation to Body Build (Hildebrand, 1968). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1968-hildebrand-symmetrical-gaits-dogs-relation/