Canine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, Second Edition. Edited by Chris Zink and Janet B. Van Dyke.
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Summary

It is critical for the canine sports medicine and rehabilitation professional to under-

stand canine gait and to recognize the differences in gait between different breeds of

dogs to be able to recognize subtle lamenesses, which are quite common in canine

athletes and working dogs. Structurally, dogs are quite different from horses. Their flexible

spine (13 ribs as compared with the 17 or 18 of horses), relatively empty gastrointesti-

nal tract, separate radius/ulna and tibia/fibula, and feet that can grip mean that canine

locomotion is quite different from that of horses. Dogs use six basic gaits: walk, trot,

transverse canter, rotary canter, transverse gallop and rotary gallop. The walk and trot

use the same order of footfall as the horse. However, whereas horses almost exclu-

sively use the transverse canter and gallop, dogs prefer the rotatory canter and gallop.

There are several tools that can be used to accurately analyze and quantify gait abnor-

malities, including high‐speed digital video cameras and kinematic, kinetic, and tem-

porospatial analysis systems.

Introduction

Equine gait has been studied much more inten-
sively than canine gait. As a result, there is a ten-
dency for veterinarians and rehabilitation
professionals to apply knowledge about equine
gait to dogs. This is generally inadvisable because
the musculoskeletal anatomy of horses is very
different from that of dogs, and as a result, there

are several major differences in the ways that the

two species move. Dogs have a much more flex-

ible spine than horses, partly because they have

just 13 ribs as compared with the horse’s 17 or 18,

depending on breed. In addition, dogs have a

separate radius and ulna as well as tibia and fib-

ula, allowing them to rotate their limbs on their

axes; they also have  feet that grip. Horses also

have six lumbar vertebrae in comparison to the

Locomotion and Athletic

Performance

Chris Zink, DVM, PhD, DACVP, DACVSMR, CCRT, CVSMT, CVA,

and Brittany Jean Carr, DVM, CCRT

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