Is there something funny looking about this dog?

Good eye! :biggrin2: What you're seeing is that she's out of proportion... she's too short on leg/too long in the body. If she were an inch taller or an inch shorter, it would work.

Now - at seven months, she might just be growing funny. Hopefully this is just a phase, and one proportion or the other will catch up.
 
And they shot her on a hill to level her top line. If her feet were level, her butt would be in the air. I see ads on shelties online where people do this too.
 
Mmm, just from a regular eye it looks like the sheltie has very short stubby legs. Shelties tend to have long bodies so it definitely sticks out when their legs are short.

Good point about the hill. I didn't notice that. I too wonder what she would look like on leveled ground, would her butt really be in the air?? Could this cause any kind of long term problems to the hip or any other joint from that imbalanced proportion? I would imagine so because her back legs seem longer than her front, that'd be quite uncomfortable, as it is for humans that have one leg slightly longer than the other (a lot of people have this, a few cm's difference). Just my thoughts.
 
Thanks for the input.

To me, it also looks like her front legs are a little too far back. Her entire neck and shoulders almost look unsupported to me. I know that the extreme opposite is the girraffe look... but to me she almost looks camel-like. (where the neck and head swoop out and up)

Anyway... I don't have any intention of showing any dogs I may have... but I would like to ensure that they're correct for their breed and that physically they don't have limitations causes by strange body type.

Thanks again.
 
Mikos_Mom said:
To me, it also looks like her front legs are a little too far back. Her entire neck and shoulders almost look unsupported to me.
Click to expand...

This is actually a better than average front. The photo is hindered by the way her head is turned, but the whole point of the front legs is to support the torso (Engineering 101). So ideally, the front legs will be well under the body, and behind the ears (if you dropped a straight line down from the ears, the legs should not be close to that line). That creates the strongest base for the neck and head.

I can pick on my own dogs:

So here is an OK, but not great front:
http://www.clantyre.net/clip/Marque.html

Here is a much nicer front (you can see it in her movement as well):
http://www.clantyre.net/clip/Liesl.html

One kind of simple way to tell a not-great front is to feel over the dogs shoulders. If there are skin wrinkles there, it's pretty much a giveaway that something about that front/neck assembly is not kosher.
 
ClantyreSheltie said:
This is actually a better than average front. The photo is hindered by the way her head is turned, but the whole point of the front legs is to support the torso (Engineering 101). So ideally, the front legs will be well under the body, and behind the ears (if you dropped a straight line down from the ears, the legs should not be close to that line). That creates the strongest base for the neck and head.

I can pick on my own dogs:

So here is an OK, but not great front:
http://www.clantyre.net/clip/Marque.html

Here is a much nicer front (you can see it in her movement as well):
http://www.clantyre.net/clip/Liesl.html

One kind of simple way to tell a not-great front is to feel over the dogs shoulders. If there are skin wrinkles there, it's pretty much a giveaway that something about that front/neck assembly is not kosher.
Click to expand...

Yeah... maybe it's the way her head is turned and her front is so brushed out that makes her look like a camel to me.

It's funny... I can spot an incorrect front (ie. the girraffe look) from a mile away, but I can't figure out exactly what "correct" should look like :rolleyes2:
 
You probably end up recognizing the bad front more easily simply because there are so many out there. It is much harder to find correct fronts... it can even be hard to show a really good one when there are so many bad and average ones out there that some judges seem not to do with a dog with a correct front.
I find it interesting to go through all of the ads on sheltiesonline, and do the line from the ears down, and see how many are bad fronts.... and keep in mind, these are winning dogs.
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hpho...6887905225_1342192003_2864984_917279345_n.jpg
A nice front, coupled with a nice rear as well :smile2:
 
HopeShelties said:
You probably end up recognizing the bad front more easily simply because there are so many out there. It is much harder to find correct fronts... it can even be hard to show a really good one when there are so many bad and average ones out there that some judges seem not to do with a dog with a correct front.
I find it interesting to go through all of the ads on sheltiesonline, and do the line from the ears down, and see how many are bad fronts.... and keep in mind, these are winning dogs.
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hpho...6887905225_1342192003_2864984_917279345_n.jpg
A nice front, coupled with a nice rear as well :smile2:
Click to expand...

Is that Blaze?!? Pretty!
 
No, that's a dog that belongs to a friend of mine named Ice Maiden. i'm planning to help her get some performance titles on her while she handles the conformation end
 
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