"needs more lay back" - Page 2

Thanks Rik, loud and clear.

KCzaja,

I don't know how to put it in technical terms as the other guys do, but I feel (rather I see) Rikkor daughter is not only beautiful but     EXT RA ORD INARY looking one, I wish I could put my hand on her strengths but I know she is special.
Wish some one explains why she looks so beautiful yet strong, one feels she needs only a trigger from owner to fly.

Ibrahim

Hi,
 

It simply means that the lay of the shoulder blade is forward placed.
The centre line of the shoulder blade should lean more .
towards the ideal. Which is 45 deg. from the horizontal
and the upper arm ideally should be 45 deg. from the horizontal.
This will give the 90 deg. Which forms the prefect front angulation.

I may be wrong, is the shoulder blade not connected to the upper arm
and the whole assembly, held togather by muscles.?
It is nothing to do with the sternum.

Hi,
 

It simply means that the lay of the shoulder blade is forward placed.
The centre line of the shoulder blade should lean more .
towards the ideal. Which is 45 deg. from the horizontal
and the upper arm ideally should be 45 deg. from the horizontal.
This will give the 90 deg. Which forms the prefect front angulation.

I may be wrong, is the shoulder blade not connected to the upper arm
and the whole assembly, held togather by muscles.?
It is nothing to do with the sternum.

Ibrahim, thank you. She is 7 years old now. She was (and on a good day still is) an exceptional mover.  Her mother is a Neptun daughter, out of a Gorbi daughter. High drives. Unfortunately her hips are OFA moderate dysplasia. Very sad indeed. But I have not let her go to waste, she has excelled in obedience and personal protection, and she is of course my very dear friend. She has a litter sister who was OFA good, being bred untitled, but is not as good in structure. I hope the breeders are careful about health because their brother was put to sleep at a very young age due to severe elbow dysplaysia.  I have learned to be very careful about Rikkor lines.

Rik

sonora, I completely mis read your post. I tried to edit mine to reflect this, but couldn't for some reason.

I should have said that you are correct in that the upper arm connects to the blade via the joint. Also a better description would probably be that the joint angles up and rearward from it's location in the fore chest area.

sorry,

Rik

IThe term layback means that the shoulder angle should be correct to the standard.  If your breed standard states that your layback should be a 45 degree angle or a 40 degree angle, that is what the angle of the front shoulder should be.  However, I prefer to see the front shoulder layback and rear angulation at similar degree's of depth;  that is what makes a smooth gate, otherwise, with too much rear angulation and not enough front layback the dog outdrives his front with his rear feet, instead of them meeting in the midline, they will cross the midline, they have to, they have no place else for them to go.  A great number of the german shepherds you see gating in those german show videos are way outdriving their front;  however, they are also moving too fast for their bodies structure due to the fact that is how they are shown.

A great book that explains front and rear angulations is "A dog in motion".  You can apply this to any working dog;  sporting, herding, working dogs in general.  With little differences.  That is how a dog moves.

I hope this clarifies my comments.

Nans, I have only really fully appreciated your comment about similar front and rear angulation with our present dog. He is by no means a world beater but  he still has pretty good conformation and this balance can be clearly seen when he's asleep and lying on his side.

In this totally relaxed position his limbs will fall in such a way as defined by his structure and he shows a number of parallel lines. The hock will be parallel to the shoulder blade, the tibula/fibula will be parallel to the upper arm (& to the back) and the femur will be parallel to the lower front leg. This I'm assuming is what you mean when you say the front and rear should have similar degree's of depth

Funnily enough I have heard it been said that for a smooth gait the croup should also be at a similar angle as the lay of the shoulder but I've never really managed to see this as pretty much all sources maintain they should be around 30 & 45 degrees.

Cheers,

AandA