Spocksdad, I'm glad I'm not the only one to have "leaky dobe" problems :grin2:
Lovely head indeed! Definitely better than many of the ones I'm seeing lately, or at least that's the way I feel.
Hi Cressrb,
There really are a lot of bad heads around--round topskulls, stops too deep--another thing standard says about heads is "Long and dry..." And while heads tend to be long enough they are not "dry"--which means that skin is tight and dogs don't have wet mouths--floppy flews. There are also several lines who tend to produce dogs who are generally nice but have very atypical heads--short muzzles, deep stops, floppy lips etc.
Well, maybe you can (but I don't actually believe that's true) but I KNOW you can't improve heads when you don't have any good heads left. I think that the South American breedings were what salvaged heads in the US--but that's just a personal opinion.
Always interesting to watch the changes as they are happening.
dobebug
One of the things I've always liked a lot about all of those bitches is that they have correct stops--the standard says "...top of skull flat, turning with slight stop to bridge of muzzle..." An awful lot Dobes have stops so deep that they approach those of of Danes--not at all correct for Dobermans.
And about underjaw--that's another thing that gets mis-identified a lot. A whole lot of Dobes (now and in the past don't have proper chins. They have enough underjaw but when lacking in chin it makes them look like Andy Gumps in profile.
Dobebug... I may be, as a DPCC veteran affectionately referred me to, "still nearly a pup" but in my opinion you are spot on. Obviously I can't comment on the overall evolution of the breed, as all I have to go by are pictures of dobes gone by and don't know how well they reflect the breed overall of their time... but I can certainly comment on what I see today and have seen since I started in the breed five years ago, and compare it to the written standard. I see like you stops too deep and too defined. I see improper cranial proportions (the muzzle should be longer than the skull) I see rounded skulls... I can live with wetter flews if the rest is ok, especially since these are often hidden by tightened show chokers, but then you add the wet flews on top of everything else it is a deviation from the written standard, and per the written standard, any deviation is a fault, the greater the deviation, the more faulted the dog should be. I also agree with underjaw but I do look at both chin and underjaw, I think a lot of dogs in the ring today do lack either or. By the way it's interesting to me because some of these things are also taken to an extreme in trends of the European breed ring, particularly east european breed ring (round skulls, short muzzles, steep stops, wet flews) however they tend to look coarser because they often have a lot of chin (although many of them lack underjaw to support said chins)
You might be interested to know two long time Italian judges wrote an article about heads that was translated and circulated this year, and people were so angry it had to be pulled from the site it was originally posted on, because they were virulently critiquing the current trends and saying that these heads we are seeing are not doberman heads. While the written standards do differ (and actually if I'm not mistaken the european one is a bit more detailed in terms of ratios for the proportions) they are not very different and I think anyone interested in heads might like to read it.
A little bit technical especially because of the translation
article ENG
I was also surprised to see the lack of parallel planes in some of the dogs promoted prior to the DPCA nationals. And I have been disappointed to a degree to seeing some overly fine, at times snipey heads. There's also often a lack of proper fill below the eyes.
Someone for the first time recently said Nadia had a doggy head. They meant it as a compliment, but I don't agree with it... I think this person has just grown too used to seeing improper female heads.
The two AKC judges who saw her last year at the UDC show (which has recorded comment cards/evaluation sheets) both qualified her as feminine. I think Nadia has a pretty good head, I think she has a beautiful head even... and she has gotten a lot of compliments on it, however per the written standard she has imo the maximum amount of stop I'd "tolerate" (ie that can still qualify as slight) and even then it could be less steep. She also has the absolute shortest muzzle length I'd tolerate proportionally speaking. She's also got a slightly wetter mouth and throat latch than she needs to.