Page 158 - ShowSight - December 2019

Form Follows Function: Part 13 BY STEPHANIE HEDGEPATH continued
Figure 1. Center Line of Body A – B
center of support of the forehand falls through the plantar ball (the large pad behind the pads of the toes) of the fore pad.
Total center of gravity will be considered as lateral and divided into three parts:
• the right shoulder blade center
• the left shoulder blade center
• and the true working center.
See Figure 1A
When the dog is in motion coming
toward you, ideally, you should see the dog’s front leg reaching out in front of the body and reaching inward, underneath the body, in a straight column of support. Figure 2.
Figure 2 depicts a Belgian Tervuren coming toward you, reaching in under the body with the foot and with the leg form- ing a straight column of bones perfectly aligned with each other, showing no breaks in the column of support from the shoulder to the foot. The leg should move forward with the foot low to the ground and con- tinue on with a straight column of support. As speed increases, the legs tend to converge more and more to the center line until the inside toe lines up with the centerline. If a dog’s feet eventually fall on the center line at a fast trot, this is termed single-tracking, which very few breeds do. Figure 2 is what is considered “clean” movement coming for the average dog.
What is it that causes a dog to break this column of support? Usually, it is because the front assembly has a lesser angle (shoul- der to upper arm) than the rear assembly (hip to thigh), causing the dog to need to somehow find a way to keep the front legs
Figure 1A. Centerline Showing Position of Shoulder Blades
in the air long enough for the rear assembly of the dog to finish its driving and follow- through action. If the dog does not waste time with the front paws (paddling, flip- ping the feet in front, a hackneyed action, or padding, etc.) the propulsion produced by the driving rear assembly causes the front end to be driven into the ground in a pounding action similar to the mechan- ics of a pile driver (pounding). The result of any of the above is a dog that would wear out and perhaps break down in the front far sooner than would a dog with balanced angulation front and rear.
PADDLING
Figure 3. Shows a Boxer that is paddling with his left front foot. If you look closely, you will see that the right foot, which is on the ground, falls wide of the centerline of the dog denoted by a dashed white line.
Figure 2.
Dog Coming Showing Straight Column of Support.
The left foot is in the air, going in a circular motion in order to keep the foot in the air long enough to allow for the better angu- lated rear assembly’s hind leg to complete its follow through, breaking the column of support at elbow and pastern.
Figure 4 is my attempt to show the ‘motion’ of the step using only a still photo. The dog’s right front foot is on the ground and you can see that there is a break in the column of support at the elbow where the lower leg angles inward. If the dog had a straight column of support, the leg would most likely fall along with the black line A, instead, it is coming straight down from the elbow landing on the outside of the body at B. The left foot is going in a circu- lar motion, being first lifted high off of he ground and then swinging under the body as it moves forward indicated by line C then coming in a circle to land at D, which is the >
156 • ShowSight Magazine, DeceMber 2019
Figure 3. Paddling
Figure 4. Paddling