|
|
I would like to thank everyone for the lovely entry, especially when considering it was on a working day at the start of the year. I was also very pleased with the gracious way that my placings were received.
I would like to start this critique with a couple of, what I consider, important points. I found the standard of grooming was very high, and I was very impressed with the muscle tone on the majority of the dogs. However, I would hope that when selecting dogs for showing/breeding, all exhibitors would apply the breed standard, as this is a very clear blue print. The shape of the chest is an important aspect to our breed, as this shows as being stated twice in our breed standard. The forequarters should be as straight as possible, consistent with broad chest being well let down and the chest broad and deep I found a number of dogs, which were very narrow in chest. On some, it was difficult to fit 3 fingers between the front legs, let alone my hand. This then followed through to a slab-sided ribcage with very little depth which, when reading the breed standard, is not correct. The Shih Tzu is supposed to be longer between withers and root of tail than height at withers. We should not be aiming for caterpillars, but I did find some dogs that were almost square in appearance, which is certainly not what the standard is calling for. Having said this, I was very pleased with my final line-ups, and in some classes the placings could change on another day. There are some lovely dogs being shown for which I feel the owners can be extremely proud, even if they did not win 1st prize. |
