Penny’s Hitting her Stride

Despite my best efforts to hide in Penny’s crate on Sunday morning, Emily dragged me to the Chicago Marathon starting line. It was a perfect fall morning and Em did everything short of give me a piggyback to get us across the finish line in a respectable 3:34. I was also urged on by the fact I left Penny out of her crate! I was quite proud to find her snoozing and well-behaved when I got home.

My pops came in for the race and before watching us run he got to see all the pups romp together

One of my favorite things is watching puppies run. Their body parts don’t quite match up so their gait is usually hilarious and awkward. They can usually only run in a curving diagonal – never quite straight ahead.

Eko had an extensive awkward puppy phase where his gangly butt would build up a head of steam running and then crash when he tried to stop because his legs got tangled on themselves.  Penny seems to have avoided that phase and she’s really starting to develop her form.

At the beach I captured a side by side comparison of the two pups running in stride

As you can see, the gait is nearly identical

Paw, head and tail placement all matched

Even their ears pop up at the same time!

“I shall call her… mini-me!”

Eko’s got the stride-length advantage, but I don’t think he’ll be outrunning Penny for much longer

As for me, well I won’t be out running for a while!