Proportions

 A chat with a friend last night got us totally confused. I told her that in my opinion, the dog in question, shall we call him Ringo, was too short for correct proportions. After some confusion between us, she said, but I think he has plenty of length of leg .... Awww, we were talking about different things. By saying he was "short" I meant length of body to height at the wither, she meant the overall height of the dog. No wonder the conversation was like a sitcom! 

Let's start with length of body to height at the wither ... A GSD should be longer than tall. When measuring the height, we should measure from floor to wither, just touching the elbow. When measuring length, we measure from the base of the neck to the base of the tail. The correct proportion ratio is 10 to 9 or 8 and a half. Excuse my maths, but just as examples, an animal standing at 58.5cms should therefore be approx 65cms long and an animal standing at 63cms should be approx 70 cms long.  Adding balance to the overall length would be the correct unexaggerated hindquarters. Of course people don't stand around the ring with measuring sticks, but mostly you have an idea if an adult dog looks "boxy" or "short coupled" or if it looks like it needs an extra pair of legs in the middle, then his proportions are not correct for the breed. 

When measuring the overall height of the dog, consider that the length of leg should be greater than the depth of chest, so the depth of chest is 45-48% of the overall height. So the chest should ideally be relatively deep, with the bottom of the brisket (the front part of the chest) reaching at least to the level of the elbow. Again, this is pretty easy to see without measuring, just a little extra care may be needed with dogs with "Long Skirts." Judges who fail to feel under the "Skirt" (LOL) may consider a dog to be deeper than they are! 

The dog in the top photo, Pacco vom Langenbungert, a Remo son, like his father considered to be one of the most correct dogs of recent times ... the dog in the bottom photo, well that's Siska with her long skirt!