WAFDAL

THE SPOTTING OF THE DALMATIAN CAN BE MISLEADING

When it comes to judging the exterior of a dog it is not unusual that even people who are very knowledgeable of the breed are misled by the spotting of the Dalmatian.

To prove how important the spotting as a whole and the location of the spots in relation to each other is to our breed, we will now present five drawings with exactly identical outline but with quite different spotting, numbered from 1 to 5.

From an exterior point of view this outline is not quite correct. It does not have the desired proportions. The dog is a little too high on his legs (see line of short dashes) and is too short in neck.

The above picture shows an almost ideal spotting. When the spots are as evenly spread as this, there can be less of them but hardly more and still be close to the ideal. The real advantage with this spotting is the even size of the rather big spots.

It is interesting to note how the feminine stamp is emphasised by the beautiful spotting, which also gives the dog a keen and intelligent expression. The unfortunate row of spots on the nose makes it seem to be pointing upwards, which it is not.

When judging Dalmatians you must be able to focus on spotting versus outline, not to be misled by an optical illusion.

You will soon notice that if you focus on the outline, which thus gets closer, the spotting of the dog becomes less important. But if you, on the other hand, focus on the spots, which is necessary when assessing their quality and location as a whole, the outline will give way.

As for the following drawings, 2 – 5, a quick and rather precipitate judgement might be as follows:

Head looks rather heavy and sloppy. Neck seems coarse. Shoulder is straight and elbow turns outwards. Short and flat ribcage. Hindquarters quite good but too light compared to the heavy front.

Head seems a bit short. Skull seems overdone from occiput and down. Where the withers are is difficult to see. Shoulder is sloping too much. The dog seems somewhat tied in at the elbow, which gives an impression of a French front. Shallow and wide ribcage. Too paunchy in abdomen. Falling away croup with low set tail.

Arched skull. Unpleasing expression. Weak in muzzle. Ear seems to be low set. Short and coarse neck. Too massive and heavy in front. Straight hindquarters. Unrefined and “common” for type.

Long head. Low skull with no stop. Too much lip. Ribcage too heavy, and too much arch over loin. The dog looks unbalanced and leggy. Hindquarters overangulated. Not enough bone.

Fig. 1 shows a Dalmatian, which is well angulated both in front and behind giving a longer neck, more depth of brisket, a stronger loin and, above all, more correct movement.

Fig. 2 shows a Dalmatian that is straight in shoulder and upper arm and has inadequate angulation behind, especially in stifle. This adds quite a bit to the height at withers (3-5 cm). This Dalmatian is too high on his legs and has a short and shallow ribcage, short neck and not enough bone.

The lines of short dashes show how the angulation affects the dog’s maximum stride.

The dog in Fig. 1 has no doubt the most far-reaching stride with good elasticity.

The dog in Fig. 2 moves with a shorter stride without elasticity. This stride is also less effortless, but can wrongly be interpreted as reachy as the shorter stride makes the gait look very much faster.

Text and illustrations: Copyright Ann-Marie Hammarlund