Lameness is a major welfare problem in the dairy industry; reliable scoring systems are essential to identify, treat and prevent lameness. Several environmental factors, such as flooring surface, as well as cow-level factors, such as udder fill, can influence gait. However, it is unknown if the motivation of dairy cows to walk affects gait attributes and if this effect differs in lame and sound cows. To investigate this, we trained cows to walk down an alley for a food reward and compared walking speed and several gait attributes (i.e. stride length, head bob and back arch) of cows previously identified as either lame (n=7) or sound (n=10) when they walked towards a food reward or towards no reward. Cows walked faster, had longer stride lengths and less variation in head bob when approaching the reward; this effect did not differ between sound or lame cows. We concluded that motivation to walk affects several gait attributes of dairy cows. For reliable gait assessment, gait scoring systems need to take the motivation of dairy cows to walk into account.

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