Chapter 4 - The Development of Standards

Dog breeds were initially developed to undertake activities and accordingly their supporters sought to perfect particular features deemed to be desirable. So called Toy breeds, developed primarily as pets or child substitutes, were required to be small for easy handling with coat length and type developed to create an object of "beauty" Most other breeds were bred for working purposes and thus the physical shape sought was based upon a man's perception of the characteristics required for the work to be done. Few breeds can be credited to the work of specific breeders. Most were developed by members of a club. In the German Shepherd Dog, for example, the principal enthusiast was a cavalry captain Max von Stephanitz, and his Standard (drawn up in the late 1890s) called for a square dog with a ninety degree shoulder. Function has led to the development of a slightly longer dog with a shoulder closer to one hundred degrees. The developers of particular breeds have, in modern times, drawn up a kind of written blueprint of what the breed should look like. This has been called a Standard against which each breed should be compared or judged. The originators of these Standards were not always knowledgeable about anatomy. Over the years, the need to revise, reword and improve the Standards has been necessary.

Herding breeds diverged from livestock protection breeds in a variety of ways. Medium to large size was desirable in a dog being used to see off predators but was undesirable in a genuine herding mobile. Herders were proportioned 10:9 in terms of body length to wither height. Protection dogs could develop in squarer shapes. Depending upon location, coat length would vary from the very short coat of the Kelpie developed in the dry regions of Australia to the medium length of the Border Collie which worked in the cold Scottish hills. Similarly color, though largely esthetic, was also important. Protection animals were preferably white like the sheep they frequently protected whereas all white herding breeds were undesirable because they were more difficult to identify and control on snow covered hills.

Herding breeds are, from an early stage, interested in retrieving games and stalking, while protection breeds spend their puppy hood playing antagonistic "games". If Border Collies and Maremmas are reared together, they will stick to their distinct breed groups because they have differing instincts and hence different puppy games. Protection dogs have an innate instinct but they still have to be conditioned by rearing them with sheep from an early age if they are to carry out their role successfully. In contrast a herding breed, even if reared among sheep, is unlikely to develop the livestock protection abilities because its instincts are quite different from a Komondor, Anatolian Shepherd or Maremma.

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