throw you. Judge for the quality within the standard and you can’t go wrong. Movement —When moving, the Mal- tese should give the impression of fast, yet smooth, flowing movement. Both ends should be balanced, with proper, moderate angulation—again, nothing extreme. Poor or unbalanced angula- tion can shorten stride and result in the dog taking shorter steps and more of them—resulting in bouncing action rather than smooth. Extreme angula- tion is not proper and lacks breed type. The front assembly should in no way be flashy or high-stepping in action as that would be the result of a short upper arm without the required layback of shoul- der to give the dog the reach it needs for smooth movement. The topline should be held level while moving and the head lowered slightly to accommodate the reach. Coat —Obviously, the Maltese is the only Toy dog with this beautiful white flowing coat and without it there would be no breed type to automatically dis- tinguish it from the other breeds. The Maltese coat is single, without under- coat, shiny and healthy. Density may vary, especially among different lines of dogs. Silky coats can be thick, or they can be less dense. Both can be cor- rect and one should not be preferred over the other. However, a thick, puffy coat that stands out when dropped and appears to be cottony or wooly is very incorrect. There should not be any “sug- gestion of kinkiness, curliness, or woo- ly texture”. In the absence of these stat- ed objectionable characteristics, any white coat which is shiny, healthy and falls back against the body when lifted is acceptable according to the standard. Many judges get very hung up on what they think is the perfect silky texture. They lose the rest of a great dog and put up a lesser one by nit-picking and concentrating too much on the coat comparisons. Again, coat is only one of the elements of type and one must “see beyond the hair”. In evaluating coat: color, texture, condition and quality are all necessary to evaluate before reward- ing a dog in the ring. The Misunderstood “Coat Length” Issue —The American Mal- tese Standard was approved March 10, 1964. The standard was derived from the original English standard and as such, still contains some wordings from that standard. In the section of the
American Standard about coat, it states: “The coat is single, that is, without undercoat. It hangs long, flat and silky over the sides of the body almost, if not quite, to the ground.” These seven itali- cized words have been sorely misun- derstood and misinterpreted by some while judging the breed in the ring. In fact, some very outstanding speci- mens of the breed have literally been walked out without ribbons because of this misinterpretation. The statement “almost, if not quite, to the ground” means that the coat can be almost to the ground, or completely to the ground. Restated: “It hangs long, flat and silky over the sides of the body almost, if not already completely to the ground”. In Webster’s dictionary and over in England, the word “quite” means “to the fullest extent,” or “com- pletely.” If you are “quite” nice, you are nice to the fullest extent. If you are “quite” intelligent, you are smart to the fullest extent. If the coat is “quite” to the ground, it is to the ground to the fullest extent. The sentence does not read “almost, not quite to the ground.” That would mean it could not be to the ground. It actually reads “almost, IF not quite to the ground”. Which means
it’s almost to the ground if it’s not already all the way to the ground. Now this may seem like a lot of to-do over nothing, but it has become “quite” (if you don’t mind my pun) an issue! Several very deserving dogs with beau- tiful coat texture and length have been eliminated from competition in the ring because the judge has interpreted this part of the standard to read that the coat may not touch the ground! Pup- pies whose coat has not yet reached the ground, or dogs not in very good condi- tion with sparse coats have won for the mere fact of shorter coat length. This is problem that is easily overcome by cor- rect interpretation of the wording in the Maltese Standard. So, judges, breeders and exhibitors, please do not worry a coat being “too long,” unless it hampers the dog’s move- ment or somehow destroys the outline. The coat can be trimmed to facilitate movement if too long. If the coat is healthy and white and meets the stan- dard for the proper texture (which is the subject for another article), then length should not be an issue in this breed at all and certainly not one to concentrate on when choosing the best Maltese.
5 01 / 05$) 5 0:4 . ": t
Powered by FlippingBook