Spinone Breed Standard 1936

ETHNIC DATA OF THE  SPINONE BREED 1936
According to Dr. Brianzi and  Dr. Ullio
Proposed to the K.C.I. February 17th 1936  

by: ADRIANO CERESOLI
The Italian Spinone and the Similar Races Origin.
The writings of  Senofonte (400 B.C.), Grazio Falisco (Cinegetico), Nemesiano (232 A.D.),  Seneca’ Arriano, they already described two thousand years ago this dog from firm (Sagax) with long and strong hair, experienced in hunting in the woods.
General appearance:
The general conformation is that of a solid, square, rustic and vigorous dog, with strong bone structure and well-developed muscles. The structure of the body is more extended than that of the  bloodhound: the short and stumpy forms are not typical of the Spinone. The form is well lengthened that confers with his walk that gives the breed its particular characteristic move in an almost lanky and with a trot that allows him to go crawling in an almost suspicious and wary of every detail around him. It’s a dog that is able to hunt on all the grounds in any climate, but especially in the  marshlands and in the  woods.
The breed has a docile character, patient, and is sociable, and has an imposing gait, especially in the male.
Its physiognomy has something human: it is good and strong at the same time, indicating reasoning and courage.

Characteristics:

Resistant to fatigue, it is a long-living dog.
Having a very thick skin layer, often covered by hard hair, thick and adherent, he can easily enter in the bramble bush and in the cold and deep water. His dermal, almost deprived of sebaceous glands doesn’t emanate the characteristic odor unlike other dogs. He’s always clean, because he often and voluntarily enters in the water and because the dirt doesn’t have the possibility to attach on its hard and bristly hair.
He’s known for his instincts as the best retriever. It is not a dog to lash out without reason in this case his intelligence rather than to make him scary makes him indifferent, almost intolerant of the commands.

Gait:
Distinct aptitude leans towards easy and loose trot.
Loose-limned the walk, creeping next to the firm. In the first moments of the quest he can intergalactic gallop without injury.

Defects:
The continued gallop is maintained as normal gait.
Size and weight:
For males from 56 to 66 cm; for females from 52 to 62 cm. Respectively weight kg. 32-36 in the male and kg. 30-34 for the female.

Defects:
Deficiency in the development and the exaggerated size (elephantiasis).

Color:
The admitted coats are; pure white, white roan with orange spots, white with orange
markings, brown and white, the roan, and the brown roan.

Defects:
To be considered as a fault are the coats of three colors with spots on the supercilious arches or on the breast, on the hindquarters and the forelegs, the black and all the coats of one color or black marked.

Coat:
Hard, dense bristly coat, enough adherent to the body that covers everything.
Long from 4 to 6 cm on the body, shorter on the nasal edge, on the head, in the ears, on the anterior parts of the limbs and on the feet.
On the hindquarters of the limbs appears like that of a brush, but never so long to resemble a fringe. The hair can be interpolated by shorter and thin hair, but never in the form of down thin and thick in the under coat. Straight long hair, garnish the supercilious arches, the cheeks, of mustaches and of beard, conferring to its figure the expression of an old philosopher.
The hair is of the best quality, both in the whites and in the roan, which under the sun has to have a metallic reflection, as he has a wealth of a horny substance in the cortical region of the hair. On the  back, if trying to overturn it, it has to offer resistance and after a little time, it has to return as adherent as before.
The subjects with abundance of good dense hair are appreciated.

Defects:
Defective those subjects with hair locks growing in different directions, curled, wavy, woolly, harsh, sparse and thin. Also a subject with lock of soft hair and subsequently curled on the head and with  fringe on the back of the limbs.

Skin:
Rather adherent to the body, it has to be thick, big, dry, and leathery. The thickness often reaches and surpasses that of an ox. It’s thinner on the head, on the throat, on the groin, under the armpits and on the back parts of the body trunk.
The skin covers the body with moderation, forming two folds on the skin under the chin and another one scarcely visible that starts from the external angle of the eye until the cheek, followed by an ear of hair.
The layer of the dermal almost entirely lacking of sebaceous glands, the epidermis has a very developed horny layer and it is poor of capillary terminations. It’s this anatomical particularity that allows the Spinone to enter at his ease the iced water, to voluntarily sleep on the snow and to face without injury, the bramble-bush inaccessible to other dogs.
The pigment has to be relative to the color of the mantle, and they never have to show black or white spots with no pigmentation.

Defects:
The thin, soft, greasy and flabby skin

Head:
Rather thick on the whole, but always proportionate to the body and the stature.
The small heads, disproportionate are not typical of the Spinone.

Skull.
Superficially the lateral sides of the skull have to slightly form a convex shape. In the center on the median line, the marked inter parietal crest that goes to heal the very developed occipitale apoptosis.
The lateral walls of the skull, especially in the back, softly decline so that the superior part never lies flat.
The opposite sides of the skull have to be narrow.
The mastoid temporal region must be depressed, and the bulge of the forehead and the supercilious arches not too marked.
A well proportionate head is when measured by the occipital bone to the point of the nose should be when its half falls on the joining line of the eyes.

Defects:
The flat head on the upper part that is of a ball shape; the heads that are too large on the sides of the skull without interparietal crest; with eyebrows arcades that are leaning out too much and, generally, the heads with angularity in the features.

Nose:
Should be on the same line of the nasal bridge big, spongy, of rosy color in the whites and in the white orange, brown in the roans and in the brown roans brown. From the front the nose is slightly leaning out from the joint of the lips. The nostrils have to be big, and well opened.

Defects:
The lifted up nose, small, pointed, too dark in the whites, blackish in  the roans, with spots with no pigment and with black stains. The narrow nostrils.

Nasal bridge:
The nasal bridge is long, straight or better slightly like the one of the ram.
The face seen of forehead is square, seen in profile it is slightly rounded off to its anterior extreme and slightly receding to the back.
Prolonging the superior line of the nose it has to pass above or tangentially to the occipital apoptosis, but never below.

Defects:
Short nasal bridge square, pointed, or excessively narrow to the sides.
Depression of the frontal nose
It must be mentioned and the link between the two lines of the nose and of the skull has to be  ‘I would say almost pretty.”
Defects: 
The frontal nose “jump” marked.

Lips:
Moderate in the development and of average bigness. The lower lips slightly escape to the back; the uppers divide under the nose and becoming round to their anterior extreme so that they cover the lower ones and they reach the labial joint with a light fold, and are not excessively drooping.
Defects:
Abundant and flabby lips; fold of the labial joint too marked and drooping.

Jaws:
Strong developed, well fit together.

Defects:
Slender jaw, superior and inferior prognathous.

The eye:
The expression and the conformation of the eye are one of the most important characteristics of the Spinone.
The eye has to let shine through the seriousness, the goodness and the  intelligence; it must be well positioned in the skull; the eyes must be well spaced out. Eyes close to one another will never give the Spinone expression.
The eye has to be big and well opened so that the pale coral color of the inside is visible.
The inferior eyelid has to tend to the roundness, well inserted, never drooping. The eyeball never has to be leaning out.
If the eye is well positioned then it is a good sign; the two joining  lines, the two prolonged external, internal angles of the eye, they have to meet themselves on the nose to form a very brief distance from the internal angles.
The color of th6e iris is intense yellow in the whites and white orange, and it tends to be ocher in the brown roans.

Defects:
The small eyes; when too close to each other; the almond shaped eyes; the iris too clear or too dark; the suspicious look; flashing; sharp; and gazelle shaped eyes.

The ear:
Of average size, in length it just surpasses the inferior line of the neck. Attached on the horizontal line one of the eye, with not too large joint, does not drop too rolled up, but with a slight leaning towards the inside of the head, and almost adherent to the cheek, never finishing pointed, but slightly rounded off and turns a bit outwards.
The skin of the ear is thin, soft; the hair that covers it is short and  dense, interpolated by a light undercoat that thickens at the edges.
It has to be almost constantly relaxed, with scarce erectile capacity.

Defects:
The thick ear, ordinary, too small and triangular, too big and similar to the Italian Bracco breed. The too erectile ear or the one attached too high. The ear to laid back and too shaven 

Neck:
The strong and muscular neck, cylindrical, rather short, goes down with smooth inclination from the head marking a jump behind the occipite and it is inserted in the breast with harmonious line.
The throat has to be of moderate skin without abundant or undivided skin.

Defects:
Slender, long, full of skin on the neck.

Body:
Chest: 

square profile, muscular, wide, well opened.

Defects:
Narrow, too wedge, a little low

Chest.
Large and deep, going down until the elbow. Not carinate, but with ribs well rounded off.
Defects:
Narrow, carinate, short, not low.

Ribs:
Well rounded off up to the insertion of the sternum and good prolonged to the back so that it is well inserted in the hollow of the hip.

Defects:
Ribs not sufficiently arched.

Back:
The superior profile of the back is composed of two lines. One, almost straight that goes degrading from the wither to the eleventh dorsal vertebra, the other, slightly arched that goes rising from this vertebra to the rump, joining  with the line of the kidneys. The wither is a little pronounced with detached shoulder blades.

Defects:
Saddled back, too short, lacking of the breaking of the eleventh vertebra.

Backs:
Wide region, muscular, rather short and slightly arched.

Defects:
Long backs, flat and tight, attached low in comparison to the rump.

Abdomen and hips:
The inferior profile of the trunk is almost horizontal on the thoracic area and slightly flexed inside in the abdominal part.
The hip has to be well closed from the ribs and its hollow has to be of a little width.

Defects:
Abdomen concave, wide hip, deep.

Rump:
Wide, square, muscular and rather short, slightly inclined to the back at 20 degrees on the horizontal line. 

Defects:
Too drooping, tight, long, too raised again.
 

ANTERIOR LEGS
Shoulder and arms:
The shoulder has to be strong with muscles, long and inclined. The angle that it makes with the humerus has to be at 85/90 degrees. The arm has to be, oblique, muscular and well adherent to the chest.

Defects:
Straight shoulder, thin, poor of muscles, clumsy in the movements; point of the shoulder wide apart to the outside.

Forearm:
Straight, muscular, with strong tendons and well detached, it finishes to the carpus, dry and strangled, as that of the chamois. The elbow, a little pronounced is well settled to the ribs.

Defects:
Slender forearms, arched, not well aplomb, open elbows, shaky.

Carpus:
Short, thick and dry.

Defects:
Small or swollen by the rickets.

Metacarpus.
They have to be well settled to the carpus without strangling. They have to be rather short and slightly flexed.

Defects:
Slender metacarpus, long, too flexed or too straight and those deviant  from the line of the aplomb: left-handed and the back limbs that tend to be inwards.

Feet:

Round, picked with well adherent fingers between themselves and partially connected by a membrane, they are covered with short and dense hair.
The hard soles are more or less brown in accordance to the mantle.
The fingernails of white color in the whites and white orange or brown in the brown roans, they are well bent on the ground that they give the impression to hold on to it.

Defects:
Long and wide feet, wide apart fingers, with fingernails turned forwards. Weak soles. Fingernails variegated of black or completely black.
 

BACK LEGS.
Thighs:
Rather long, well muscular, not wide apart, with rounded off back border.
Defects:
Short and flat.

Leg:
Long, strong, dry, settled to the hock with strong tendons.

Defects:
Short and narrow

Hock:
Rather short, but wide and dry, well tied up in the upper part and in the lower one to the leg and the metatarsus. Not too bent (145°) and well on the line of the aplomb.

Defects:
Right hock, too closed, narrow, out of the aplomb. Open or wide hocks, closed hocks.

Metatarsus:
Short metatarsus, strong, dry and slightly flexed. On the inside, inferior extremity, bring the articulated simple spur. Admitted the untied spur and that of the double. Tolerated the absence of the spur.

Defects:
Long metatarsus, slender, turned out (vaccines) or backwards.

Foot:
The shape is less round form of the anterior foot, it has to preserve however all its characteristics.

Defects:
As for the anterior foot.

Tail:
Attached on the continuation of the rump, strong to the root, with tendency to taper soon, it is horizontally brought and slightly lowered in rest, slightly raised again in a march or in hunting.
It is covered by straight hair well adherent, never like a fringe or a like a bow. It is cut around 15 - 20 cm. from the root.

Defects:
Attached tail too high or too low. Coarse tail with a tendency to bow. Tail brought up. And total lack of the tail, but not such as to exclude the dog from the competition.
 

Translated by Mrs. Sonia Mari
Indonesia