Paws For Thought

EVER WONDERED WHY THE ONLY ANIMAL PEOPLE RUN WITH IS THE DOG?

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DOWN THE AGES, the most influential people in history have contributed to a stringent process of trial and error to select the ideal running companion from the animal kingdom.

First to the pasta party was Charles Darwin: English naturalist, and the chap who came up with the theory that humans are descended from apes. Ironically, Darwin stunted the evolution of one animal in particular when he tried running with his pet hamster, Harry.

At the time, Harry seemed the most obvious choice to Darwin, since the puffy-cheeked pet spent much of his time sprinting frenziedly on a squeaky plastic wheel.

Darwin removed Harry from his wheel and placed him inside a plastic ball (among Darwin’s lesser-known accomplishments is the invention of the hamster ball – shortly after he invented plastic), to which he tied a long piece of string. Then he set the ball down on the floor and tied the other end of the string around his own waist.

“Stop! Think!” Harry pleaded with him. “If the ideal cadence of a human runner is 180 steps per minute, and human legs are 3 500 times longer

than a hamster’s, how many steps does a hamster have to take per minute in order to keep up with a human?”