Form Follows FUNCTION BY STEPHANIE SEABROOK HEDGEPATH
REACH & LAYBACK
I am a big fan of the Facebook page “Canine Construction and Conforma- tion,” administered by Australian fancier, Narelle Hammond of Australian Cattle Dog fame. So many thought-provoking questions and comments can be found there. One thing that was brought up recently was the forequarter reach in the dog. Com- ments on the perplexities of the fore assembly of the canine were also a topic in a recent interview that I had given on Laura Reeves’ “Pure Dog Talk” podcast. Only so much can be accomplished through the written word without actual hands-on experience, but I do try my best to break things down so that it is easily understood even by the person involved in showing their first dog. I will attempt in the next several columns to get back to the basics and try to break down some of the things in the construction of the dog that seem to be the hardest areas to understand and are the questions that I have most often heard asked when discussing structure and movement. The goal for the majority of breeds is for a dog to cover the most ground with the fewest number of steps, thus expending the least amount of energy to perform the job for which it was bred. What we are demonstrating here is the ideal movement expected in the “average dog” so that you may have a better understanding of the dynamics of canine gait. Once you understand this, then you can apply what you have learned here as to how your breed may or may not differ from what is presented concerning the average dog. In Rachel Page Elliot’s study of canine gait, she evaluated the gait of the dog by x-ray- ing moving dogs. With this study as well as the studies that have been done in years past by Curtis Brown, published in his book, Dog Locomotion and Gait Analysis in 1986, the position of the shoulder blade was more easily seen and evaluated. Curtis taught engi- neering classes at San Diego State and Purdue Universities and brought his engineering expertise to the fancy when he started showing dogs in 1938. Both of these renowned authors came to the conclusion that the “ideal” 90-degree angle (45 degrees to the hor- izontal) is incorrect in many breeds. Mrs. Elliott describes three types of forequarter structure based on the function of the breed. Brown comes up with the same basic ideas in his discussion of shoulder layback in the dog. Claudia Orlandi, Ph.D. summarizes the three categories well in her book, Practical Canine Anatomy & Movement. The 90-degree angulation called for in so many breeds is found in the achondroplastic breeds such as the Basset Hound and the Corgis. The shoulder blade and upper arm angulation are closer to 120 degrees in many of the retriever and herding breeds, and the breeds that are built for speed (sighthounds, etc.) have a shoulder-to-upper arm angle at approximately 130 degrees.
“The goal for the majority of breeds is for a dog to cover the most ground with the fewest number of steps, thus expending the least amount of energy to perform the job for which it was bred. What we are demonstrating here is the ideal movement expected in the ‘average dog’
so that you may have a better understanding of
the dynamics of canine gait. Once you understand this, then you can apply what you have learned here as to how your breed may or may not differ from what is presented concerning the average dog.”
104 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, MAY 2022
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