Front Legs - To Bow or Not to Bow

To be an apso that could live in the Himalayas, a dog has to be similar to the humans that live comfortably there. Short stature, compact bodies, longer in torso and with good lung capacity, strong well developed legs, and plenty of muscle.

A dog has two options in movement, just like we do. Each time we take a step, only one foot is supporting our weight.  Both dogs and humans can either shift the center of gravity ( our weight) over to the foot which is on the ground, or we can bring the supporting foot under the center of gravity. (This is true of the dog even though he has 4 feet, because 75 % of his weight is borne by the front).

Have you ever noticed how very obese people roll from side to side as they walk? Why? Because their wide thighs prevent the feet from being brought under the center of gravity at the midline. They must bring the weight over to the foot that is bearing the weight - shifting their center of gravity over to each foot, every step they take. If you cannot visualize this, stand with your two feet as far apart as your hip bones. Now you are balanced and your weight distributed perfectly in a straight line from foot to hip. Now try to walk with your feet exactly that far apart. Better yet, try to trot with that wide based gait! Rolling like a ship in high seas, weren't you!

Now walk normally. Unless you are dysplastic or very obese, your feet are in or near the midline. Moreover, when you stop, notice that your feet toe slightly out. Feet are constructed to toe slightly out. All feet. Cows, horses, pigs, wolves, rats, cats, humans. Only certain man-made critters like some dogs were altered to conform to a human (but not very engineering conscious) idea of how they should look.

Shifting the weight with each step is not only ungainly, but (if you tried wide based running you already know) it is very energy inefficient and tiring. At 16,000 feet, an animal that did this would not last long. Of course if it had a terrier body, it could move in pendulum fashion because of the short rigid body and long legs. (Of course it would probably fall off the mountain and die if it did not expire from hypoxia first.) The fairly wide body of the apso means that in order to bring it's feet to the midline, it must accommodate the chest and still have some freedom of movement.

The front limb of the dog behaves in similar fashion as the human arm. Consider the diagram A. The unshaded arm is analogous to the standing position of a fox terrier - perfectly straight at the wrist. This is the correct position for a narrow terrier, because these dogs do not bring their feet to the midline as they reach forward, but tend to move the front legs - pendulum fashion - straight ahead. (they avoid a roll by having very rigidly coupled, narrow, short bodies.)

The Lhasa, however is a very flexible, longer bodied dog, which avoids a rolling gait by "single-tracking" - bringing the feet toward the midline. What happens when the "straight pasterned" foot is brought to the midline. Diagram "A" shows that the foot no longer points in the direction of travel. but now "toes-in". During the weight-bearing portion of the stride, this puts torque on the wrist bones (pastern), and produces an abnormal gait.

Diagram "B" shows the midline "foot" position, with the wrist (pastern) correctly angled for the weight bearing portion of the stride.  When the "foot" is in the standing position (the foot directly beneath the elbow) it toes out slightly.  When the foot reaches foreward in a singletrack, the "foot" is angled in the direction of travel.

So you can see that the single tracker who has a relatively wide body should not have the absolutely straight pastern or foreleg of the Fox Terrier. Since the Lhasa is wider, longer bodied, and more flexibly coupled than a fox terrier, the mechanics of his front movement are significantly different. The Lhasa with a terrier-straight front will either move wide, and roll, or it will toe in and appear to be weaving in the front. Thus the front of the apso, and to some extent the front of all small dogs with relatively short legs, needs to have some minimal bowing of the legs to get around the chest, and there needs to be a slight toeing out of the feet in order to single track efficiently. To say we want an apso to have to have substance, (yet perfectly straight legs, that single tracks without toeing out), lung and heart room, (yet a short body), smooth movement without a roll, (yet no bowing of the humerus or forearm), is simply asking for an impossible, imaginary creature. These are mutually incompatible physical types.

All of our present standards seem reluctant to address this issue, simply stating the front legs should be straight. The original standard published in 1901 was much better, in this regard than any of our current standards,

"The fore legs should be straight. In all short legged breeds there is a tendency to crookedness, but the straighter the legs the better." Sir Lionel Jacob, 1901

This allowed for the dog to have the correct body habitus, and still move in a smooth, unrestricted and efficient manner compatible with life in the Himalayas. This was written by a direct observer of the breed in it's native mountain habitat, and not by a bunch of folks looking at the breed after it had been altered by 100 years of breeding for the show ring at sea level in the West! So it is no surprise that Jacob's description is much more realistic than our modern, exhibition inspired ideas of what makes a good "showdog".

I think this photo shows the good body type of an apso along with realistic front legs. This bitch has the muscular build and large chest capacity we want to see on an apso, and has very clean, single-tracking movement.