Page 242 - Showsight March 2013

determine in the ring to be a “roach back”
is entirely at your discretion, but this is the
guideline I use in judging a correct French
Bulldog topline.
The Frenchie Standard further states,
“The chest is broad, deep, and full; well
ribbed with the belly tucked up.” Remem-
ber that the tuck-up should somewhat fol-
low the topline and that a correct topline
will more often than not exhibit the correct
tail set, “hung low... carried low in repose”.
A high tail set will often be indicative of
an incorrect level topline. Remember that
a straight topline and high in the rear is
not a roach.
Another area of difficulty is that
of proportions. The Standard states,
“Proportion – Distance from withers to
ground in good relation to distance from
withers to onset of tail, so that animal
appears compact, well balanced and in good
proportion.” The key word in this descrip-
tion being “balance”, the Standard gives
no specific body proportions for the
Frenchie, only that it appear compact,
well balanced and in good proportions.
Notice that the length stated in the stan-
dard does not include the forechest or
the croup. This means that even if the
length stated were equal to the height at
the withers, the correct Frenchie will still
appear longer than tall.
The photographs shown are of finished
dogs, some of which are Group, BIS and
National Specialty winners. I believe that
they are all balanced and of “good propor-
tions”. As an exercise, I drew a rectangle
from the point of shoulder to the point of
rump (Ischial tuberosity) to designate the
length, and from the withers to ground
to designate the height. I then measured
the photos to determine an approximate
length to height ratio.
Where you actually measure makes
a large difference, so all the ratios are
approximate and only for illustration. Of
the animals shown, it was interesting to
find that the shortest dog (Figure 2) had
a length to height ratio of approximately
1.1 to 1, thus being about 10% longer than
tall; while most of the other dogs were 13
to 15% longer than tall. Notice that all of
these dogs have correct toplines with cor-
rect low tailsets.
I then took the photo of the 8-year old
bitch in Figure 1, who is 13% longer than
tall and digitally shortened her to a nearly
square length to height ratio for illustra-
tion purposes (Figure 1A). You can see that
the altered photograph now appears to be
overly short, unbalanced and thus poorly
proportioned. Since our Standard does
not give us specific numbers, we are each
at our own discretion to decide what are
“good proportions”. I firmly believe, how-
ever, that the shortest dog in the ring is not
always the best Frenchie. A correct back
length not only gives correct toplines, but
also correct, freer gait, a correct tailset and
an overall healthier dog.
With some of the ambiguities in the
Standard, a wide range of correct and
incorrect dogs, and the large number of
entries, the French Bulldog is probably one
of the most challenging breeds to judge.
However, if you clearly remember the cor-
rect silhouette, which includes correct size,
topline and proportions, you can quickly
eliminate the incorrect dogs and refrain
from rewarding the generic Frenchie.
BIO
Luis Sosa obtained
his first French Bull-
dog in 1975, out of
Te r r e t t -Hamp t o n
breeding. Since then
with his wife Pat-
ty, they have bred
around 80 AKC Champions that have
won more than 300 Non-Sporting Group
Firsts, 38 All-Breed Bests in Shows and
Best of Breed at five FBDCA National
Specialties. Luis judges for the Non-Sport-
ing Group and a number of other breeds,
and has served on the FBDCA Board and
Judge’s Education Committee.
Fig. 1: Well proportioned 8-year old bitch.
Fig 1A: Digitally shortened square proportionas
of previous photo.
Fig 2: Very short 10% longer than tall dog.
Fig 3: Well proportioned dog.
“REmEmBER
THaT a sTRaIGHT
TOpLINE
and high in the rear is
not a roach.”
242 • ShowSight Magazine, March 2013