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A Study
of the Scottish Terrier Published by the Scottish Terrier Club of America |
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A Study of the Scottish Terrier General Appearance Last update - 1/12/02
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Forequarters - The shoulders should be well laid back
and moderately well knit at the withers. The forelegs should be very heavy in
bone, straight or slightly bent with elbows close to the body and set in under
the shoulder blade with a definite forechest in front of them. Scottish
Terriers should not be out at the elbows. The forefeet should be larger than
the hind feet; round, thick and compact with strong nails. The front feet
should point straight ahead, but a slight "toeing out" is acceptable. Dew claws
may be removed.   |
Perfect Scottie forequarters are rare, largely because we are asking nature to do something unnatural, i.e., make short legs out of heavy bones and attach them to a 10" high dog with a jaw as big as a German Shepherd Dog's. A good front starts with shoulders. In the ideal Scottie, the scapula and the upper arm should approximate a right angle; the scapula should be well laid back (30' from vertical, according to Rachel Page Elliot's latest work); and the upper arm must be approximately as long as the scapula. In a well-laid-back shoulder, the top of the scapula points farther back toward the tail. This is very important for two reasons-first, the farther back the shoulder, the farther forward the dog can reach with the front leg. A dog whose shoulders point straight up walks with a mincing gait that is inefficient. Secondly, straight-up shoulders make the back longer and the neck shorter-not as pleasing to the eye.
If a dog has good layback and angulation, it (an still have a problem. If the upper arm is too short, the legs can still be too for forward. The upper arm must be long enough so the front leg is set down in back of the dog's forechest. When looking at a Scottie from the side, one should see a nice handful of chest (not just hair) protruding in front of the legs. The elbow joint should be well behind the front line of the chest. It must not stick out to the side, nor should it be tucked under the body. When the dog is moving, the elbow should move smoothly against the ribs. Finally, if the scalpulae are set too for apart at the withers, there is often a build-up of muscle under the shoulder blades, often referred to as "loaded" shoulders. |
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