GPS Tracker Reveals Dog Walked Double His Owner
20 Dec 2016An experiment shows that when taking your dog for a walk, they travel twice as far as you do. At least this is what Rod Kirkpatrick found while walking his spaniel ‘Chester’. Chester likes to go explore on their walks and covers more miles than Rod.
It often pleases dog owners to take their canine out for a walk and allow them to lead the way on a good run. However, many dog owners don’t realize just how far their canines actually go and how many more miles they cover than them.
Kirkpatrick was about to find out. He fitted Chester with a GPS tracking device before they set off for a walk on The Roaches rocky outcrops in The Peak District.
His daughter, Freya who is 8 years old, had her smartphone with her which had a walk mapping app downloaded on it and could track their miles. They also attached a small video camera to Chester’s collar so they could actually see where he went exploring.
What they found was they were able to cover over 4 miles on the 90-minute circular route while Chester was able to cover over 8 miles on the same route. The map showed all of Chester’s loops and deviations while he was running around exploring.
As he zig zagged around the route, satellites were able to plot his path and you could hear some startled grouse in the background as Chester was charging all around the National Park.
Towards the end of the walk, Chester had to walk to heel along a gated road which slowed him down. This didn’t mean that he wasn’t tempted to continue his exploring; he was just forced to walk beside his owners the direct way back to their vehicle. Since he wasn’t able to roam freely during the last quarter of their walk, the final data might have been altered some.
Towards the end of their walk, Chester appeared to be tired and his bag that contained the GPS tracking device was covered in mud. Kirkpatrick believes his spaniel would have covered more miles if he wasn’t slowed down by having to walk to heel along the gated road. You could see on a map where Kirkpatrick and his daughter walked in a fairly straight line along the route while Chester looped and zig zagged his way around the route.
You can see on the video clip as Chester splashes through puddles and sniffs through the undergrowth, stopping frequently to take a drink from the puddles. He even finds a sheep skeleton which he stops to sniff out for a bit before running along.
Once they got home from their walk an hour and a half later, Chester slumped down in front of Kirkpatrick’s fireplace to take a nap.
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