Standard is a perfect dog fitting to fulfill certain tasks the best way. The type includes the correspondence with the standard, perfection (physical as well as psychic harmony), style (a stylish dog has grace, motion coordination, honor, representativity and elegance), quality (harmonious size combined with the first-class look or the relation of health, style and attitude), beauty (smoothness and elegance of body lines, the ability to astonish and bring joy) as well as qualities derived from the above mentioned: behavior (the dog's attitude to the external world, its affections, readiness to fulfill some commands, curiosity, interest and friendliness towards people, self-assurance).
A dog breeding professional breeds a certain animal type, refines it, anchors its best qualities in the offspring and gets a new, more interesting dog type. Don't think that all of this concerns only the "high art". If you've red the type constituents attentively, you should understand, how interconnected they are, how much one depends on another, and define the usefulness and feasibility. Every dog type as well as every dog breed proves its right to exist by living next to the humans every day.
The type is a very important dog feature. Here is an extract from an American kennel club standard:"An Amstaff should appear as a powerful athlete being relatively small of size. It is a very well-built dog, muscled,
but graceful and agile, very vivid. It must to be compact, beautiful
and have a firm constitution. One of the main Amstaff features is masculinity".
Subsequently the type witnesses even temper, strength, health. It is just a big dog in a small package.
When the dog stands side-drawn to you, you can define two lines constituting its head form: the snout with a well defined shift next to the eyes and the upper part of the head. The snout looks a little snub because of a powerful lower jaw. You can see rippling muscles even on the head and on the cheek-bones. The eyes are round, dark, they have an intelligent and curious expression. Wrong are diamond, almond-shaped and down-falling, slanting eyes, the position of the bony processes below the eyes, a wedgelike head shape. The snout has to abruptly fall down. If the dog possesses a inclined profile and the jaws of the same shape, a wedge-like shape and both lines merging into one another are considered bad head features. The head must be muscled and appear powerful. The strong nape has to be bulgy next to the occipital bone. The line going from the base of the skull down the chest carina has to curve passing along the inner part of the elbows. So if you look at the dog from the front, the head appears low, the nape flatten.
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To be continued...