…that easy travelling gait, which is the best for man and beast, [is] vulgarly called a " dog-trot. " Some very fine and fanciful people insist upon calling it a " jog-trot. " We beg leave, in this place, to set them right. Every trot is a jog, and so, for that matter, is every canter. A dog-trot takes its name from the even motion of the smaller quadruped, when it is seized with no particular mania, and is yet disposed to go stubbornly forward. It is in more classical dialect, the festina lente motion. It is regularly forward, and therefore fast -- it never puts the animal out of breath, and is therefore slow. “[The Beagle] was a pleasure to hunt. He could jump rabbits, run full-speed all day, and he never wore out.” –Owner of Big Meadows Beagles. ἤϋσε θεὰ λευκώλενος Ἥρη Στέντορι εἰσαμένη μεγαλήτορι χαλκεοφώνῳ, ὃς τόσον αὐδήσασχ᾽ ὅσον ἄλλοι πεντήκοντα: αἰδὼς Ἀργεῖοι κάκ᾽ ἐλέγχεα εἶδος ἀγητοί. --Iliad On a weekend long run, I had passed the country church I attend at mile 4, the horse barn at mile 5, and the ¼-acre cemetery of leaning slabs and eroded transcriptions on mile 6. I picked up two handfuls of stones in case the dogs at the house around the bend came out at me. The yard was still and silent in the morning sun. But something was coming up from behind. I whirled around, raising a hand ready to throw the stones.
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Trails we follow,
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