Walking the dog offers surprising insights

The domestic dog may have been man's faithful companion for thousands of years, but a new large-scale study by German zoologists has managed to produce some surprising new results about the animal's movement.

Martin Fischer and his team at Jena University in Germany filmed a total of 327 dogs walking on treadmills with high-speed 3D cameras in order to determine if there are differences across breeds. The results astounded the scientists.

"When we compare the movement of a 2 kg Chihuahua with that of an 80 kg Great Dane, we see that their action is profoundly similar," explains Fischer, who has been studying the movement of animals for over two decades.