Formats and Details
Each recognised breed of dog has a written standard, many of which have been developed and slowly changed over the last few hundred years. Some breeds were described by fanciers in a written breed standard in order to provide guidelines for breeders participating in the sport of conformation; other breed standards, such as those written by the Spanish veterinarian Manuel Marques in the 1930s, were written to provide a description of a native landrace breeds that were in danger of dying out. Since the origins and purposes of standards vary, the contents, teminology, and organisation of the information in a standard also varies.
The Fédération Cynologique Internationale, which organises international dog sports and events, including conformation shows, does have a basic outline for a breed standard format. However, not all national kennel clubs belong to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale. The American Kennel Club is the world's largest kennel club, and it does not belong to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale, and does not use the international breed standard format.
Since the purpose of the standard is to assist those who show, live with, or work with the specific breed, lack of a consistent format between standards for different breeds has never been shown to cause any problems for fanciers of the individual breed. Breed standards are not scientific documents, and are not standardised throughout the world.
An example of breed standard variations from country to country is the American Kennel Club standard for the Bull Terrier, which states clearly that a level bite or a scissor bite is acceptable, and the Australian National Kennel Council Bull Terrier standard, which only recognizes the scissor bite. Since an incorrect bite is a serious fault, breeders in one country might cull out puppies that would be acceptable for show in another country, alternately, some competitors might find their local champions unable to compete internationally. During the conformation show at the 2004 Sydney Royal Easter Show an unusually large number of protests against the judges’ decisions were lodged; it was felt by some owners that the international judges did not completely understand the commonly accepted breed standard interpretations of the Australian National Kennel Council. It is up to the exhibitor to know the rules of the governing body under which he or she is showing a dog.
Read more about this topic: Breed Standard (dogs)
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