I must preface my remarks with two disclaimers. First, though Americans are not known for their good manners, I am at least in good company in criticizing the British standard. Peter Warby, and the late Frankie Sefton took the standard to task years ago. Since no effort seems to be underway to rectify it, I felt it my duty to revisit the subject. Secondly, You will have to forgive my reliance on the "Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary". American and English are more disparate than a surface glance would indicate. So, tossing aside Politeness and the English Language , here goes!

GENERAL APPEARANCE - Well balanced, sturdy, heavily coated.
Not much to object to here. The use of the word "sturdy" was questioned by Frankie Sefton, and perhaps she was objecting correctly to the popular interpretation of the word, as meaning "heavy set". My dictionary defines sturdy as "hardy and vigorous", which is as the Lhasa Apso should be.

CHARACTERISTICS - Gay and assertive
Do you get the impression that the word "gay" has sort of gotten away from us in the past few decades? Perhaps there is a less loaded synonym?

TEMPERAMENT - Alert, steady but somewhat aloof with strangers.
"Aloof: Distant, especially in manner or interest; unsympathetic." This definitely does NOT describe the Lhasa Apso. "Chary: Cautious, careful, wary." Why, oh why, did you throw out the word that perfectly captures the Lhasa Apso attitude? I think everyone will recognize the true Apso chariness in the following:

Amber makes a fuss when a stranger enters the house. She barks enthusiastically to be sure we are all aware of the potential danger posed by this strange person. She quiets as soon as the intruder is seated, and seems to be accepted by the humans in her household. However, she, who has keener powers of perception than her human charges, is not yet satisfied that this intruder is harmless. She circles him, investigating him from all angles. Closer and closer, she approaches. (You have the impression at this point that if she had hands, she would poke him with a stick.) Within a few seconds, she is within nose-poke range. After a few pokes, she places her paws delicately on the strangers knees, and looks him full in the eyes. For some seconds, she does her "Vulcan mind probe" routine. Finally, satisfied that she has discharged her obligation as "Bark Sentinel Lion Dog", she leaps up on the sofa and stations herself next to the now satisfactorily vetted stranger.

"Distant, uninterested"? Hardly. "Cautious, careful"? Definitely.

HEAD & SKULL: (One wonders why head does not include skull. ) Heavy head furnishings with good fall over the eyes, good whiskers and beard. Skull moderately narrow, falling away behind the eyes, not quite flat, but not domed or apple headed. Straight foreface with medium stop. Nose black. Muzzle about 4cm (1 1/2 ") but not square: length from tip of nose roughly one third total length from nose to back of skull.
Now we have some meat to get our teeth into! What, precisely does "good" mean in this context? I hope we are not making a moral judgment about headfall, whiskers and beard! What would not-good whiskers be? Evil whiskers? Surely the English language contains adjectives more specific to physical description than "good". How about "profuse", "long", "full", "abundant", or "ample". Any one of these would relieve us of any worry over immoral whiskers.

Ah, now we come to the famous "falling away behind the eyes" debate. This phrase first appeared in Sir Lionel Jacobs' description of the Apso in 1901. Apparently, Sir Lionel was the only one who knew what it meant. Since that time, like the Emperor's new clothes, no one has had the courage to challenge this phrase because no one ever knew what it meant. Since it was impossible to judge whether or not it was important, it has been handed down, from standard to standard, a holy mantra, secure in its obscurity. When you try to imagine a skull that falls away behind the eyes, the only vertebrate that comes to mind is a frog! Why cannot both the English and American standards finally admit that Sir Lionel's words have no readily appreciable meaning, and get on with a straight forward description of the Apso skull?

"Not square" - what does this mean? "Square: A parallelogram having four equal sides and four right angles." In other words, a square is a two dimensional geometric object. Saying the muzzle is not square is as meaningless as saying it is not triangular or circular. An obviously three dimensional object like a dog's muzzle, cannot be any of the above. Can't we just say it "tapers slightly from base to tip" or equivalent words to that effect?

EYES - Dark, Medium size, frontally placed, oval, neither large nor full, nor small and sunk. No white showing at base or top.
Oval does leave some doubt as to what is wanted - there are all sorts of ovals, meaning egg-shaped. I guess we would be in the same trouble if we said human-shaped - we come in many shapes as well. But whatever happened to "almond", which has a pretty well defined shape, one which is exactly what we want?

EARS - Pendant, heavily feathered.
I have only one bone to pick with the ears. "Feathered" is a word used to describe the body and leg furnishings of sporting dogs. That type of silky hair is hopefully not what we find on Lhasa Apso ears. We do want the same hair as the headfall, whiskers and beard. Why not say it?

MOUTH - Upper incisors close just inside lower, i.e. reverse scissor bite. Incisors in as broad and as straight a line as possible. Full dentition desirable.
Now we get to an area which I think has real potential to harm the breed. To begin with, the statement ".. as broad . . as possible " is quite simply ridiculous. How broad is as broad as possible? One inch? Two? Three? This is a cartoon, not a dog. Canines, planted like fence posts on either end of a straight row of incisors, is a mouth that goes along with retrousse noses, namely the Bulldog, French Bulldog, Pekinese, Japanese Spaniel, Boxer, Dogue de Bordeaux, and others.. What do all the breeds with this type of nose and dentition have in common? Breathing problems! In Tibet? At 16000 feet? I think not!

I cannot imagine why the breeders in the U.K. decided to blur the distinction between the Shih Tzu and the Lhasa Apso, by writing a Shih-Tzu mouth into the Apso Standard. It has been suggested to me that this was done because mouths were becoming narrow and scrambled, with missing teeth. If so, shame on you! You would alter breed type in an overreaction to your own mistakes in breeding!

A Standard has a profound effect on the evolution of breed type, and must always address the long term interests of the breed, not the short term results of recent injudicious breeding. Since the FCI designates the U.K. as the country of domicile, and imposes this standard on the rest of the world, it is doubly important that your standard be universal rather than a reaction to problems unique to your island. Australia rejected the U.K. standard, and more countries should do the same, until you folks revise your standard back toward the original breed type.

NECK - Strong and well arched
Well arched?? Where did that come from? I must admit I do like a nice long arched neck, but this was never part of any description of the Apso. This is a small dog, not a Arabian horse. True, a ewe neck is a weak neck, but no well constructed canine has got a ewe neck anyway. It is dangerous, from the standpoint of preservation of type, to introduce new elements into the breed standard, the long range consequences of which are unknowable.

FOREQUARTERS - Shoulders well laid back, forelegs straight, heavily furnished with hair. Bravo. (no feathers)

BODY - Length from point of shoulders to point of buttocks greater than height at withers. Well ribbed. Level topline. Strong loin, balanced and compact.
By omitting one little two letter word, you have changed the body type of the Lhasa Apso. "Well ribbed" has always meant barrel ribbed. "Well ribbed up" has always meant a long thorax with the ribs flattened and extending well back on the body. A barrel ribbed dog is a type associated with the Pug, Shih Tzu, Bulldog etc. None of these evolved in a mountain environment.

In order to be viable at altitude, the thorax has to be 1. large in capacity and 2. capable of considerable expansion when needed. The coursing hounds, who also need big lungs, achieve this by having deep chests. The Apso, being a short legged dog, can't compensate by deepening the chest, so he must have a longer chest to hold his big lungs.

Ribs are attached to the vertebrae by means of movable joints. Barrel ribs are placed nearly at right angles to the spine and therefore cannot expand further. The ribs of a "well ribbed up" dog are attached at an angle which permits them to swing out for expansion.

"Level topline" - what does this mean? The topline of a dog, or anything for that matter, goes from its nose to its tail. The topline of a 747 does not include only the part from row 20 through 33! If one is introducing a new concept , like "level topline", into a standard, it would be a good idea to be specific rather than vague! Again, the "compact" word seems to be negating the Apso's necessary length of body as stated in the first sentence of this section of the standard.

I will let my hero, Lionel Jacobs, in his piece from 1901, answer several of these points for me:
"BODY: - There is a tendency in England to look for a level top and a short back. All the best specimens have a slight arch at the loin and the back should not be too short; it should be considerably longer than the height at the withers ".

The present Standard has succeeded in taking away most everything that is Tibetan about the body of the Apso, and making him just another little British dog. As I said before, since FCI uses your standard, it is rather unfair to the rest of the world, for the Brits to kidnap our little Himalayan -Tibetan breed and substitute a British "improvement".

HINDQUARTERS - Well developed, with good muscle, good angulation, heavily furnished with hair. Hocks when viewed from behind parallel and not too close.
There's that "good" word again. Evil muscle and angulation might be a problem indeed!

The hocks worry me. Does this sentence refer to the animal standing or moving, or to standing and moving? If you want wide parallel movement, you are asking for a wide, rolling gait typical of a Shih Tzu or Pekinese. If you doubt me, try this experiment: Try to run with your feet spaced as far apart as your hip joints. If you were a good sport, and tried it, you learned why you don't want an Apso to gait that way!

For balanced movement, (that is, movement without falling down) there must be support for the center of gravity. There are two ways to do this. 1. Bring the center of gravity over to the foot, or 2. bring the foot under the center of gravity. If you move the body over to the foot, then the shift of weight produces a pronounced roll. If the foot moves under the weight, that is toward the central axis of the body, then the body moves forward without a roll. Now try the running experiment again - narrow and wide-based. See?

There's another strike against wide rear movement. It is often associated with HD. Small dogs with HD often move as if they had a load in their nappies. It is not the same as the rolling or bouncing gait, and once seen, is not easily forgotten.

FEET - Round, cat-like, with firm pads. Well feathered.
Setters have "feathered" feet. Lhasa Apsos have great big muffs on their feet!

GAIT / MOVEMENT - Free and jaunty
You might imagine, gentle reader, that this abominable American would object to the "jaunty" part. I do not. "Jaunty: Having a lively and self confident air or manner." I do object to the British usage of the word to imply bouncy or prancing action. No, "jaunty" is fine as long as the gait is smooth and efficient. A dog who developed at very high altitude has no business putting fancy flourishes on his basic locomotion. It is hard enough getting from here to there at 16000 feet.

TAIL - High set, carried well over the back but not like a pot-hook, often a kink at the end, well feathered.
High set. Again the insistence on introducing an element not contained in either the original standards nor assumed by the nature and purpose of the breed! Yes it looks nice, but does a Lhasa Apso need it? Tail set has a lot to do with the center of gravity of an animal. A forward tailset brings the center of gravity forward, and places the weight of the animal more on the forehand. For an animal which in its native land had to jump much more than trot, weight on the backhand is more advantageous.

What is a pot-hook? There are those pesky feathers again! The kink in the tail is a problem. Yes it was a characteristic of the Apso. It is also a spinal malformation. There is a real increase in the incidence of other spinal malformations, such as hemivertebra, in animals with kinked tails. It is interesting that as we have had a lower incidence of tail kinks, we have also seen a real decrease in the number of Apsos with back problems. I, for one, am happy to forfeit a tail kink, which is of no use to the animal anyhow, in favor of sound backs.

COAT - Top coat long, heavy, straight, hard, neither woolly nor silky. Moderate undercoat.
Danger! That word "moderate" has the potential to rob the Apso of its ability to survive in Tibet.

COLOUR - Golden, sandy, honey, dark grizzle, slate, smoke, parti-colour, black, white or brown. All equally acceptable.
Am I to assume from this that my light grizzle or my black&tan are not equally acceptable, but BROWN is? Brown is a colour which normally carries a brown nose i.e. liver pigment. Why include a limited list of colors, which contains three shades of tan and three shades of gray, excludes b&t (one of the most common Apso colours), and excludes red and red sable? Makes no sense to me. Maybe it does to you.

SIZE - Ideal height 25.4cm (10 inches) at shoulder for dogs; bitches slightly smaller.
Good! Good riddance to the "abouts" and "variables". I think 10 inches is a little unrealistic however. The Hamilton imports from Tibet in 1930 ranged from 10 to 12 inches. The American showring is overrun with 12 to 13 inchers. We would have a tough time passing an ideal height of 11 inches. Of course, this is all dependent on the method of measurement. I suspect that most people who think they have 10 inch dogs are not measuring their dogs at the proper landmark, which is the place on the top of the wither, where the scapular spines meet. Improper measurement can result in undermeasurement by as much as an inch!

FAULTS - Any departure from the forgoing points should be regarded as a fault and the seriousness with which the fault should be regarded should be in exact proportion to its degree.
A bit wordy in stating the obvious, but yes! It's the "points" that need fixing!

In conclusion. Rewrites of standards are one of the most dangerous activities a breed club can undertake. Introducing "foreign" elements into a standard is as potentially detrimental to a breed as introducing foreign breeds into the breeding stock. - The result is seldom an improvement. It should not be done except in the most extreme need. And it often produces just another mutt!