Some friends of ours dropped off their 5 month old puppy on Saturday morning. The dog is a small mixed breed with lots of energy and no fear of our 2 larger dogs.

I was sitting in my den watching the news when the little guy comes through the door at top speed, runs by me and exits out the door on the opposite side.

Moments later, our own dog, Kita, came around the same corner and stopped in the middle of the room. She was waiting for the pup to come flying around the corner again. She wasn't disappointed as the young one returned...at top speed once more!

As the pup put on the brakes, he slid on the tile floor and smashed into Kita. The dogs wrestled with each other for a few moments, and then the younger decided to rush out for another lap through the living room and kitchen, then into the den to take on his elder.

Of course I was laughing for a moment at the little one's slide into Kita--but then it struck me that the pup had duplicated the "Ice Man 1 & 2" videos in the Bearpowered Resource section (www.bearpowered.com/resources)!

The pup slid on the smooth surface of the tile for a few strides, struggling to get traction as he approached the open door. Finally finding the necessary traction, he increased his speed to the point that he could run all the way around to the other doorway at nearly top speeds (slowing to make the turns, then speeding up again) and run through the den again at FULL SPEED WITHOUT SLIPPING!

He did not "paw-back" with his paws or he would have continued to slip. Instead, he had applied mass-specific force to the ground on each of his 4 legs, at the appropriate time, and fully utilized elastic recoil created.

As much as I would like to take credit for his mastering the "art" of running at top speed on a slippery surface, I cannot. The little bugger had learned it all on his own, including finding the optimum running vectors, forward lean (can a dog lean forward?) and adaptation to the running surface.

I thought, for a brief moment, that I should explain to the pup that he needed to listen to the specific "cues" that I could give him to remind him to dorsiflex sufficiently and in a timely manner but he was moving at such a great speed I couldn't get the words out fast enough. I debated with myself for a bit as to whether or not I should show him proper arm swing action so that he could enhance his speed but I wasn't sure which set of legs should act as the arms.

In the end, I gave up and decided to let him have fun. There was time enough for me to interfere with his running mechanics as he got older.

I wonder which leg he would use for one-legged bounds...