| Orville,
I respectfully totally disagree with your assessments of tails and use in movement. Ever attended a Chris Zink seminar? She is both a DVM and a PhD who is also very into jumping and agility.
Go to her seminars, watch her tapes. You will see the difference a tail makes in jumping, and in steering in the air, to start propelling a dog in a new direction. I know for a fact that is used this way on the ground too.
I worked at a vet for 4yrs. If we had to amputate a tail from either a cat or a dog, they were completely screwed up in terms of balance and jumping for several days after the amputation. Our rule of thumb was that cats couldn't go home until they could jump up onto our counter top, without going kersmack into the cabinets below. The point being: animals DO use their tails A LOT for both balance and steering, and this is blatantly obvious when that tail is later removed.
It is not ADRK hype, it is simple physiology. Ever watched a tailed dog doing a rocket recall? They use that tail to slow down more efficiently.....it starts to spin like a windmill, very notably in GSDs.
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