Page 239 - Showsight April 2013

The expression is created by the gentle
lines of the head and correct dark almond-
shaped eyes. The correct soft expression
can only be seen when the eye color is as
dark as possible for the coat color and a
piercing eye caused by incorrect pale eyes
and/or round eyes should be penalized. Yes
a brown-pigmented dog will never have
as dark an eye as a black-pigmented dog,
but they should still be brown, not yellow.
Correctly placed medium-sized ears also
add to the softness of the expression, they
should be set wide on the head, too close
and they give too harsh an expression. The
ears can be fully erect or semi-erect, and
even one of each! There is no preference—
but drop ears like that of a Leonberger
should be penalized.
The body proportions are just off
square, with the length being about 10%
longer than height at withers (measured
from point of shoulder to point of buttock).
When considering height, it is important
to note that the depth of the body should
not be lower than the level of the elbow,
as a breed designed to cover heavy snow
covered ground the legs must give suffi-
cient ground coverage or the breed would
soon tire in deep snow. The neck should be
medium length and angulation should be
moderate and balanced—a combination
of both gives a more relaxed head carriage
and we should not be looking for upright
animals with ears directly in line with
bones of front legs. The rib cage is long and
well sprung. From a firm straight back you
move to a short croup, we do not require
the slope of the normal herding breeds,
such would give a less defined rump, and
a Lapphund has a broad muscular bottom!
Moving to the tail (which is very char-
acteristic of the breed and something that
many judges misunderstand), it should
be high set and heavily plumed with long
hair, it is not tightly curled, but lies over
back or loin in attractive plume. Some
dogs have a “J” hook at the end, but any
kinks down the length of the tail should
be faulted. On the move the tail should be
carried over back or loin, but when relaxed
and standing the tail may hang behind
the dog more like a herding breed and less
like Spitz. When standing, this relaxed tail
should never be penalized. It is a feature
of this gentle-natured breed, but if the dog
fails to carry its tail higher on the move,
then this is a fault and is likely to highlight
poor tail set or nervous character.
When assessing movement, you should
expect an effortless gait with a good length
of stride—a short front reach indicates
short upper arm. As with many pastoral
breeds, as the breed increases in pace you
will see convergence of the legs both com-
ing and going. One important thing to
note is the breed naturally tends to gallop
in preference to a trot and many will pace,
so judges may need to show patience when
getting them moving in the ring as they
may not trot to demand!
The double coat of the breed serves a big
purpose: protecting from the extreme cold
in its country of origin, a thick soft under-
coat to insulate and the harsh longer outer
coat to be weatherproof. The coat should
not be so abundant that the outline of the
dog cannot be seen. Soft, curly or wavy
coats are incorrect.
The color variation within the breed is
one of the aspects that attracts many to the
breed, but it is important that judges do not
add inappropriate weighting when deciding
their winners based on color or markings.
The color of the breed is unimportant as long
as the color is acceptable. Under FCI rules,
a saddle, brindle or parti-color dog would
be unacceptable and recently they added
that dilute colours (i.e. blues) are undesir-
able. For other color, all that is required is
that there is a main color and other colors
may appear on head, neck, chest, underside
of the body, on legs and tail. As you can see,
there is no emphasis on any color pattern
and judges must avoid being biased towards
highly-marked dogs, (i.e. large patterns on
the face in preference to a darker dog that
“One important thing to note is the breed
naturaLLy tends to gaLLop in preFerence
to a trot and many wiLL pace”
ShowSight Magazine, April 2013 • 239