Quadruped Locomotion

I began investigating the dynamics of quadrupeds by first looking at their skeletal anatomy. This showed me the location of the pivot points in the animal, the angle of the shoulders and the joints and bends, which showed me the limits of the animals legs. I also noticed they have digitigrade feet (walk on their toes). This generally makes them move more quickly and quietly than other mammals.

I filmed some video footage of my friends dog running up and down the beach. This allowed me to get some indication of their leg movement.

I noticed the dogs body moves side to side just as a humans body does, the chest and hips move not just the legs. I observed the standard sequence for a dog when walking is: Right front leg, left front leg, right back leg, left back leg.

Dogs are cursorial quadrupeds, their legs stand them in the upright position, with the femur and humerus held towards the vertical. The cursorial structure helps make the animal more suited to running at high speeds.

I did some further research into quadruped locomotion and came across Eadweard Muybridge. He was an English photographer important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion. Producing over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, he captured what the human eye could not distinguish as separate movements.

Here are some examples of his work:

This really helped me identify each seperate movement and the passing and stride positions. The length of the stride widens with the speed of the walk.

This video is a series of Eadweard muybridge's photographs animated to show a horse galloping.


Another bit of video reference i found online of a dog running in slow motion: