the fastest runner - a whippet dog ! ? !

You see them on the roads, nearer house, and everywhere ! – at midnight as you return home, you find them at a distance, it would start snarling – somewhere else another would return its sound !  .. .. . now you develop a cold-feet – should one run ? – and if yes, how fast, can one running under threat run faster than the chasing one !

The street dog !!  -  long ago, before the  four-legged best friend of humans  learned to fetch tennis balls, its  ancestors were purely wild animals in competition—sometimes violent—with humanity.  At some point, tens of thousands years ago -  our bitter rivals transformed  to  snuggly, fluffy pooch pals?  -  According to Scientists,    all dogs  descended from wolves.  !  - pet dogs are disciplined, while stray street dogs may not be !!

Read this interesting news report from Germany :  One dog owner has bitten another in the eastern German state of Thuringia in a fight over the correct way to discipline canines.The quarrel occurred after a 27-year-old woman saw a 51-year-old woman hitting her dog, according to the police.The younger woman allegedly took the older one to task for using such corporal punishment. A quarrel ensued in which the two dog owners ended up hitting one another.

In the course of the fight, the older woman reportedly fell and dug her teeth into a calf of the 27-year-old, resulting in an injury."The dogs only looked on and did not engage in biting" during the fight between the two women, German police said.The women are to appear in court on charges of causing physical injury.

Reas, the muscular, 51-pound Whippet, owned by Lindsay Gluth and Matt Manetti, of Michigan City, Indiana, is basking in glory !  becoming  America’s No. 1 speed demon earlier this month after winning Fastest Dogs USA on ESPN and a week later the American Kennel Club’s Fast CAT Invitational in Florida.To put it in perspective, winning back-to-back events of their magnitude is akin to coming out on top in two consecutive Super Bowls, World Series, Stanley Cups, or two Cricket T20 World cups !!

Reas, now the America’s fastest dog, is a Whippet,  a dog breed of medium size. They are a sighthound breed that originated in England, where they descended from Greyhounds. Whippets today still strongly resemble a smaller Greyhound. Part of the Hound group, Whippets have relatively few health problems other than arrhythmia. Whippets also participate in dog sports such as lure coursing, agility, dock diving and flyball. The name is derived from an early-17th-century word, now obsolete, meaning "to move briskly".  Whippets are often described as "the poor man's greyhound "

Dog racing was originally an extension of hare coursing. Whippets began to be bred to race in the mid-nineteenth century. The first form of the sport was a rudimentary form of coursing known as 'ragging', and dogs who participated were said to be 'trained to the rag'.Dogs were kept on a leash by a person known as a slip, who was frequently also the race judge.  The slip would release the dogs from their collars at the same time, and they would race towards their owners, who were standing at the opposite end of the track waving towels.

Dog racing has come a long way since – and at Florida, Reas -  a male white-and-blonde whippet, bolted ahead of the competition to win the second-annual Fastest Dog USA competition.The three-year-old ran a 100-yard dash in 5.769 seconds or 35.45 miles per hour. That's 0.5777 of a second faster than last year’s winner, Phelan, a mixed-breed rescue dog whose winning time was 6.346 seconds, or 32.3 miles per hour. This year, 250 dogs from 154 breeds competed—more than double the number of competitors in last year’s inaugural race. Phelan's attempting to defend his title resulted in a fifth-place finish, with a time of 6.485 seconds.

The American Kennel Club calls this contest the Fast CAT Invitational—short for coursing ability test. It's part of the AKC’s annual National Championship, a series of competitions that culminates with Best in Show.For Fast CAT, each dog competes in two categories at preliminary trials, held earlier this week. The first, the Pure Speed category, which recognizes the top 10 dogs in their height class for their speed. The second, Speed of the Breed, which determines the top 10 dogs that run the fastest over the average for their breed.

He likes to do all the stuff,” says Lindsay Gluth, of Michigan City, Indiana, who co-owns Reas with her fiancé, Matt Manetti. She listed a few favorites: dock diving, Frisbee, and barn hunting. The two fastest dogs of each breed participated in the finals race—an average of three 100-yard trials, which was held December 17 at the Orange County Convention Center.

During the competition, dogs chase a moving lure. Their owners often stand at the finish line, cheering them on. “Dogs have a unique ability to understand our body language, or our cooperative communicative intentions, in a way that no other species can—including our closest living relatives, the great apes,” says Hare, who has written several books on dog evolution and behavior. (Related: Stray dogs have the natural ability to understand human gestures.)

As long as 40,000 years ago, wolves in Germany or Siberia began to hang around human settlements, drawn by food scraps. The friendliest and least skittish animals formed relationships with people, helping them hunt and protecting their homes. Over time, these wolves domesticated themselves into the modern dog—and all its diverse breeds—that we know today.That close relationship forged over the centuries is why it’s easier to train a dog than, say, a cat (though America’s Fastest Cat would be an intriguing event).

So, .. .. .. would a man under fear run faster than a chasing stray dog ?  OR !!

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
27^th Dec 2021.