“CHARACTERISTIC OF IBIZAN HOUND TYPE IS OUR UNIQUE FRONT CONSTRUCTION AND THE MOVEMENT THAT RESULTS FROM IT.”
Characteristic of Ibizan Hound type is our unique front construction and the movement that results from it. Here are the key statements in our Standard: • A rather upright upper arm. The shoulder blades are well laid back. • The elbow is positioned in front of the deepest part of the chest. • The deepest part of the chest, behind the elbow, is nearly to or to the elbow. • The chest is deep and long with the breastbone sharply angled and prominent. • The brisket is approximately 2 ½ inch- es above the elbow. • A suspended trot with joint flexion when viewed from the side. “Joint Flexion” and a “rather upright upper arm” are not an excuse for lack of efficient movement or for unsound- ness. The Ibizan is an athletic hunter. Its front is designed to gallop and trot high, an adaptation to hunting effective- ly in high brush and rough terrain. Our breed still has good reach in the front, they just do it with lift. At first we only had smooth coated dogs in the United States but now we have handsome wire coats as well. Our standard describes the wire coat
as 1 to 3 inches in length and (like the smooth coat) hard in texture. We run the full range from smooth, to a mix of smooth and wire, to fairly tight wire coats and out to lush coated examples. All are just fine. Our coat just needs to protect the dogs in its hunting activities in high brush. Part of why we have a range of coats is because we breed one breed, mixing wires and smooths with the goal of producing the most athletic, soundest and most attractive hounds. Ibizans have amazing ears, stunning eye color and striking self–colored pig- ment. We want an ear which is more wide open than simply triangular. Our old standard described the ears as an “elongated rhomboid truncated at 1/3 of its longer diagonal”. That was per- haps a little too much like a high school geometry lesson but it did describe an ear which was more than simply “large and pointed.” Our Standard asks for an ear which is 2 ½ times as tall as its width at the base. Those are the big ears we want to see! On the other hand, it does our breed a disservice when judges make the competition into seeing who can hold their ears up the longest. We need judges to judge the athletic hunter under the ears.
282 • S how S ight M agazine , J anuary 2018
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