Haha, yep. Leggier than Link is what I meant

Sorry I am just catching up now - I was at nationals all week...and man was it a blast!!

Let me look things over for a few minutes before I work up a real response.

Alright, health wise I'm sure he is fine; however, I would take a few pounds off of him. If it's jiggling, or rolling on top it's a little too much. I saw quite a few dogs with this issue over the week.

This is a link to Chase, from Qudos Siberians. He made the cut today at nationals in Best of Breed (it's pretty impressive) and has very nice conformation - you can see what kind of a shape a mature male should end up in and what movement should look like

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4866526542082&set=vb.1264830069&type=3&theater

If you can't see that let me know.

Megan, I can't see the link.

Today we had a play date with a husky Luna, and Yuki next to Luna really reminded me of Link next to Mechta. Although after seeing her pictures today I definitely think she needs to loose weight, luckily I'm going to be biking her and hopefully we'll get it off.

Hi Megan, thanks for checking this out.  I was hoping you would.  I quickly just took a few free stack pics and these are the best ones that came out.  




So yeah, I think I'm gonna shoot for dropping a few pounds just to trim him up a bit.  Upping the exercise is easy enough but in terms of cutting back on things he eats there's not a whole lot I can do.  We aren't actively training right now so his treat intake is lower than what it has been for most of the recent months anyway.  He eats about just over a pound of raw food daily.  

Do you think there is any validity to the idea that he is still a growing puppy and perhaps entering a growth spurt and that a little extra is acceptable right now?  It seems much easier to assess an adult's weight and physique than a growing puppy's, where there's more change and normal fluxuations occurring.  

That link you posted said "unavailable content" for me, but I have zero access to Facebook stuff so I don't know if that matters.  

I'm looking forward to you posting about Nationals.

Here's a good action pic of his body, kinda stretched out though, ha. Him and his buddy Taco again

He's fine for now - keep him at one pound of food a day - that should allow him decent growth.

Does it work now?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4866526542082&set=vb.1264830069&type=3&theater

P.S. Nationals was fantastic.

Yes, it worked now, thanks. My very first thought was he's so light on his feet, a very light fluid stride. Even on him though it looks like the shoulder-rib area is the thickest part of his body. Not saying he's chunky at all, but there's just more mass there than the other parts of his body. This is surely accentuated by the really nice hip tuck then the muscular thighs too.

One of the things I love most about the look and function of this breed is how purposeful the body looks, so strong and athletic, but compact and dense.

Well, Chase has a well shaped front - let me see if i can whip up a diagram of what to look for in a front. May take a bit!

No problem, take your time. I'm logging off now for movie time. I'll catch up tomorrow.

G'night.

Good sources:

Old Standard (still good, they are just working on a new one)

http://www.shca.org/pdfs-docs/1999_IS.pdf

What they have of the new one! Look on the left side bar for blue links - will open to pictures.

http://www.shca.org/SHCA_Illustrated_Standard.html

Since I said I would get a comparison picture today...


Dizzy just wasn't up to stacking for the picture so this is the best we got (without me having to cut/crop/paste pictures together - I'm far too tired right now).

Wow yeah, big difference in neck and chest too.

This might be a bit better since he's better stacked and the angle is better.

Diz was like, "screw this, I'm tired." Lol. Ceara, maybe sometime, when you/we have time (I know, what's that), we could put together a post about conformation differences between typical show/working lines. I'm willing to throw Dizzy in as an example (not that he's a good example, but you have free access and my permission/support to give an honest critique).

Ok so we set out on a gameplan to trim Link down just a bit, maybe 2-3 pounds. It was very difficult to gauge this considering he's still a growing puppy, but the general consensus that I gathered and my strong intuition about him suggested that I go ahead and make a plan.

So, first things first is just a bit more jogging around on our local soccer fields that are nice and squishy. Also, considering that he doesn't get a whole lot of treats (never actually bothered to figure out the % of his overall food intake though) and he doesn't get any scraps of our food or junk, it was difficult to think of what to cut. He eats a strip of dehydrated sweet potato once a day and we are really happy with what this does for his poop in terms of balancing it with the raw bones he eats.

But that said, we are going to take him off of treats fully for a while and substitute carrots and snap peas, which he loves to eat anyway.

I'm pretty convinced this plan with trim him down the way I am wanting and get him into the perfect shape for his age and growth.

We are *almost* at the age for him to start running with me and pulling/joring so I want him to be in as good of shape as possible, and then of course that will keep in this shape ongoing.

I can not wait to order his Alpine Outfitters X Back harness.....so excited about that. Only 4 months away...ish.

I think you are far too worried about it - He's still young and they go through many phrases before they fill out. Around his age, Cato lost a ton of weight and it was very hard to put weight on - they just grow very oddly.

Totes agree with Megan.

So, I was kinda at this point with Diz pre-neuter (I think he's very close in age to Link was when you posted this) and realized that his coat is super, super thick. They shaved a huge section of his belly and seeing him without all that fur made it pretty obvious that he's not overweight. His coat is literally adding about 3" to his overall appearance. I measured it from his skin to the tip of his guard hairs and it's 1.5 inches thick! He's quite trim actually. He was about the same height, 21.5 inches and weighed in at 47.2 on Friday.

Good points. I think that issue in conjunction with pre-growth spurt pudge can cause a lot of variation in rather short periods of time.

That said, I put him on veggie treats for a few weeks and a good bit of his jiggle went away. Now with his increased exercise he looks great.

Niraya wrote:

This might be a bit better since he's better stacked and the angle is better.

I'm not super educated on dog standards, angles, etc but working in visual communications, I have a pretty critical eye. To me, both of these dogs have similar proportions. The only glaring difference is coat color and coat length which gives the illusion that Mechta has a longer neck

You all have BEAUTIFUL pups they are gorgeous, i had a quick question for anyone, Nala is almost 2 years old and only weighs probably 40 lbs and shes pretty small she is a full Siberian husky i was curious if that is what the females usually weigh?

Not sure if you can tell she doesnt like her picture taken but shes pretty small not sure if thats normal or not

Oh yay! This will be fun! As you can imagine, Dizzy has changed a bit as he has developed (as has Mech), but here is the way I see the comparison.

It is not an illusion that Mech has a longer neck. Mech has a longer everything proportionally, but to me, the most obvious is the loin. Dizzy has a very short loin in comparison. There are also major differences in their chests.

Here are a couple more up to date photos:

Dizzy December 1:



Mechta January 13:



When you compare these two photos, you can see how short in the body Dizzy is compared to Mechta and a lot of that is in the loin area. Also, look at their paws, Dizzy has dainty round feet, whereas Mechta has oval (correct). Coat color is deceptive here, but to me, if we could 'make' Mechta grey, I think that would actually make you see more differences vs. less between the two of them. Although it's hard to see, Mechta also has a very straight topline whereas Dizzy's is sloped. The more dogs I see, the more differences I can see between them. To me, honestly, Mechta has amazing conformation, and don't be fooled by her coloring, although she's not typical 'show' coloring, her mother was a very successful show dog that was a typical light red.

Also to note, the differences are much more obvious when you see them in movement. Dizzy has a very short reach (how far out the front leg goes) whereas Mechta's is huge. His gait looks choppy, hers effortless.