During fast locomotion--gallop, half-bound, bound--of quadruped mammals, the ground contact of the limbs in each pair does not alternate symmetrically. Animals using such asymmetrical gait thus choose whether the left or the right limb will contact the ground first, and this gives rise to limb preference. Here, we report that dogs (Mammalia, Carnivora) and pikas (Mammalia, Lagomorpha) prefer one forelimb as trailing limb and use it as such almost twice as often as the other. We also show that this choice depends on the individual and is not a characteristic of the species, and that the strength of the preference was not dependent on the animal's running speed.

中文翻译：

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在平坦的地面上，四肢奔跑的狗和半数的鼠兔都喜欢四肢。

在四足哺乳动物快速运动（疾驰，半约束，约束）时，每对肢体的地面接触不是对称地交替发生的。因此，使用这种不对称步态的动物会选择左肢还是右肢先接触地面，这会引起四肢的偏爱。在这里，我们报告说，狗（哺乳动物，食肉动物）和皮卡动物（哺乳动物，食肉动物）更喜欢一个前肢作为后肢，并且使用它的频率几乎是另一个。我们还表明，这种选择取决于个体，而不是物种的特征，偏好的强度不取决于动物的奔跑速度。