What is your opinion about this words of our breed standard ?

Black is ok, so i think dogs with brown, chocolate, or blue nose and pigmentation are not correct about this point.
Aquiline nose, for me, is a sloping nose, which fall slightly.
I think this special nose is very rare.
In my Kennel Ungarehi get it really, R'ihafia and Oliver have a nose timidly aquiline and Jauféa and his son Barna B. absolutely not, their muzzles have a topline straight.
I like aquiline nose, parallel lines about skull and muzzle and no stop are more important, but i hope that the aquiline noses will not disappear...

The uk Deerhound Standard says

Head and Skull
Broadest at ears, tapering slightly to eyes, muzzle tapering more decidedly to nose, lips level. Head long, skull flat rather than round, with very slight rise over eyes, with no stop. Skull coated with moderately long hair, softer than rest of coat. Nose slightly aquiline and black. In lighter coloured dogs black muzzle preferred. Good moustache of rather silky hair and some beard.



I think my problem is the word aqualine Latin for " Eagle like", which clearly is a hook or beak like which would not be desired so I guess the word slightly aqualine could do more clarification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquiline_nose


I love the photos and frankly I like both heads , I would hate the aqualine nose to become too important in the great spectrum of things

Lovely photo Florent who are they?

bientot

Mm.. I think its good that 'aquiline' is also emphasised as 'slightly'... Keldas is certainly fitting of the description 'slightly aquiline'.. Im not sure that needs any further clarification, presumably anyone needing to be clear on what the breed standard actually means is capable of looking up the word aquiline and finding how it is applied (ie, not ACTUALLY as curved or hooked as an eagles beak), even if its not in their every day vocabulary.

I would guess another term could be 'roman nosed' which is certainly used to describe the facial profile of some breeds of horse... but could that place too much importance on it, and end up with nightmarishly English Bull Terrier headed deerhounds?

Balance and moderation is required in all things - not that I have a clue how one words a breed standard to encourage that any more than is already done. If nothing else though, the recent pedigree dogs exposed (hawk.spit.)program has highlighted (much as it galls me to agree with such sensationalist carcrash journalism), that focussing too much on one tiny point, in some breeds on one WORD of the standard is foolish at best...

I would assume, and it is an assumption given the mere blink of an eye ive spent 'in' this breed, that aiming for the slightly aquiline nose steers one away from snipey or overly fine heads, which would be a crime.

Well said Emmabeth. I worry about over fine "Borzoi" looking heads which seem to be creeping in. They lack any breadth at the ears.

I do not like snipey heads, Deerhounds need a strong jaw and neck, a snipey head stops this function. My Champion Ardneish Scourie had an amazing head and neck the day I saw her take down a roe deer it become so apparent to me just how important this is, I still so want this amazing breed to have the requirements to carry out the job it was bred to do, we have more important problems with steep shoulders poor upper arms and terrible back ends I think,

Also "Handsome" is as handsome does, if its not between the ears it does not matter about the confirmation.

If you click on the link I posted it shows the meaning very well, this is why I struggle a bit with the word,aquiline " slighty" in the breed standard helps, but its open to interpretation
I did not see the TV programmer but heard about it, there is to much exaggeration in some breeds eg the Irish Setter which now would find the job impossible to do, due to silly human beings destroying the breed.for fashion and ego,s.

Function is paramount to me, no doubt others will disagree.

Lovely photos though and good of Florent to post it, I had not paid to much attention to noses, the rest of the hounds is more important to me.

Ardneish wrote:


Function is paramount to me, no doubt others will disagree.

[/quote]

I most certainly wouldnt - form follows function, without function we would not have the hounds we have and I think it is imperative we do not lose sight of that.

Too many have and I do think it is ridiculous in some breeds, labradors for instance - cracking dogs but how many in the show ring could do a days work, or closer to home - Irish Wolfhounds, again lovely animals but exactly how much use as a sighthound are they? Coming from a lurchery background myself, I know of no serious lurcher person who'd entertain the idea of a wolfhound being a useful cross, but most would snatch your hand off for the chance of a quality deerhound stud!

Details are important, they are the link between different types, and the points which help really to recognise a breed, more than the construction, size, substance,...
To prove what i said, our breed changing it self, about size, substance, angulations,...
If we remember the past books, the first standard , or if we listen the rare persons which continue to hunt with deerhounds or similar dogs ( www.kangaroodog.org/index...ge=the-standard ), we need to admit that a lot of deerhounds, especially amongst the shows winners (and two of mine dogs are concerned), are too tall to be efficient to hunt a healthy male adult deer.
Picture of Quodlibet Harris, a fabulous working dog with modest shows result, unfortunately...

I agree with you Betina, I don't like snipey heads either. And function should definately be paramount. Wether we can course or not should not make any difference, we should still be breeding for type and fit for purpose otherwise we will lose all that we love and admire in the breed.

I love a beautiful head , but think , too , this is not the most important part ( as long as it is strong enough and , I have to say , the expression IS important to me ) - what I really dislike are the weak rears and the " extreme " toplines , that so often go hand in hand with a rather stiff back - nice to look at but utterly disfunctional .I have the feeling there are also some sloping toplines popping up , reminding me of the Shepherds - but this might be just the way the hounds are stacked - to me it looks rather repulsive . Also , I very often can see rather flat feet on some of the famous showdogs - something else , that is extremely important for the work out on the moores/highlands , good , strong feet. Not even to mention shoulders.....
As my dogs hunt / run a lot on very difficult ground ( rocky , steep , hard , lots of brush and ditches and dead wood ...) and are very different in build I am getting a pretty good idea what works well and what makes them vulnerable . Lurecoursing gives me , to a degree , different results ; one of my passionate and very good lurecoursers would be an " utter failure " at the hunt if she would be inclined to do so ( too tall ,not enough substance/too narrow , to stiff in the back , too weak in the rear and overangulated ....) Of course she is beautiful - as every deerhound is ! - but looking at her build from a performance point of view , definetely not what one wanted .

Verena

Florent that link is for the Kangaroo Dog which is a Deerhound/Greyhound cross so it isn't true to our breed. The mere fact that they say that the neck should be long enough to catch a rabbit is a sure sign. The Deerhound was bred for bringing down Deer, prey that was the same height and taller. An overlong neck would have weakness in that respect. IMO
Also in the majority of long necked hounds, the flow from neck to shoulder can look too 90 degree rather than a nice flow. Does that make sense? I would think that this would cause injuries even when catching rabbits. Again JMO
I often read on the Lists about dogs suffering from "Deerhound Neck" I wonder if this is from weaknesses due to length and construction??

I was talking to someone about hunting function in deerhounds on the weekend and they mentioned the old hunting breeders liked the front feet to turn out slightly (not too much), and this helped them to turn quickly. Interesting given that straight forward feet seem to be a big thing in the show ring.

on the original topic, our girl (hunting only lines) has a black slightly aqualine nose, but the ears seem to have paid the price

attempt 2 at the picture

I wonder Bundaleer if that is because of the way the Roo and rabbit run and hop? I have never seen a deer being coursed so I don't really know how they act. If a Deerhound was chasing deer out on the moors I would assume that speed and endurance would be key factors whereas in Australia maybe agility is more useful as well as speed. Just thinking out loud.

Those ears...

Hi Budaleer

Love the picture of your dog with prick ears. Although not whatt he breed standard states I think that it gives an additional personality!

That is interesting with the turned out (slightly ) frontfeet - I am not so sure it is true - perhaps they just wanted to give a reason why their dogs had them...I have seen a few deer being hunted and they can turn very well ( seemingly even in midair if it needs to be ) - at least here , in our dense brush/forests . Well , I will see my Disa's turned out front feet in a very different light now , meaning , as a huge asset rather than as resembling a huge Basset ( not that they are sooo bad ) .

Verena

P.S.: Love the ears and the face , too !

Funny howw discussions go, from noses to feet. Interesting, one of my girls has a tiny out turn to the feet. She courses like a fiend and makes tight turns when needed. And there are times when the ears prick, they're sensing game in the offing. Otherwise it's a nice rose ear.

I was having a chat with an old sighthound person the other day and they also said that you can forgive sighthounds a slight turning out of front feet, but never a toeing in. Apparently toeing in usually means loaded shoulders as well??? I just thought it interesting that other sighthounds also have views that tolerate a slight turning out.

Ah well back to noses.

Here's a photo of 'Slim' or Cluaidh's Boon to Cusidh. She also has what you'd describe as an aqualine nose.

So I started looking at the other dogs too. Banrigh (Drawing Down the Moon to Cusidh) also has what I think would be an aqualine nose. But she has overall a more 'standard' head shape compared to Slim and therefore the nose shape is less noticeable.

Again I personally like both types. Thanks for the post Florent as it wasn't something I'd really looked at before. In terms of heads I'd always looked first for a dark eye.