Another hot and humid morning, another short run with T-Diggy. This one took us through a different part of the boardwalks around Lincoln Field. The picture makes it look cool and shady ... but the picture lies! Our commitment to exercise paid off big time, however, because we saw not one, not two, but THREE dachshunds at Lincoln (a pair and a singleton). My grandparents once had a dachshund named Heidi, and my friend Jill also has one named Mr. Dudley Doodles (I kid you not). They are shaped so differently from Tasha, it's hard to believe they are both the same species. I took this photo on the boardwalk to illustrate what we spend a great deal of our "running" time doing, which is sniffing.
We take lots of walk breaks when it's hot, and Tasha takes advantage of those opportunities to catalog the identity, whereabouts, and probably important health and diet indicators for every animal that's been around recently. She really loves to sniff! Sometimes I think she would sniff at a spot for an entire hour if I didn't drag her off. I do wonder what she gets out of it. Is there a lot of really interesting content there, and is she building an incredible database in her head of local animal facts? Or does it just smell good?
What a coincidence! Two days after I posted this, I saw a news report that scientists have detected the gene responsible for the short legs of certain dogs (dachshunds, also corgis and basset hounds). It's the "fibroblast growth factor 4" gene (fgf4), and in humans it's associated with dwarfism. Now we know!
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