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The ears should be of moderate size, preferably small
rather than large, broad at base, muscular, pricked and
moderately pointed neither spoon nor bat eared. The ears
are set wide apart on the skull, inclining outwards, sensitive
in their use and pricked when alert, the leather should
be thick in texture and the inside of the ear fairly well
furnished with hair.
The standard calls for preferably smaller rather than
larger which means that if the ears are anything more
than moderate size, it is better that they are smaller,
as large ears are not characteristic of this breed. There
is a tendency to have ears too big, incorrectly placed
and of poor leather quality. So how big is too big? Pull
the ear to the eye. A small ear will come close to the
outer edge, a big ear will exceed the inner edge. Incorrectly
placed? The outer edge of the ear must be on the vertical.
Poor leather quality? soft, weak, fly away ears, often
with a crease in the ear.
Kaleski writes, The ears are short, so that they can
be readily laid flat when biting or fighting; and are
less likely to be damaged. Pricked, so as to catch sounds,
such as whistles or words of command, best, especially
from a distance. Running to a tip, V- or diamond-shaped,
for two reasons: (1) the progeny are more likely to be
prick-eared, the ear-muscles rising much higher in a diamond-ear
than a "tulip" or spoon-shaped ear; (2) the
spoon-ear is a sure indication of the Bull-terrier cross;
set wide apart on the skull, so that the ear inclines
outwards rather than forwards, for in the latter case
they do not hear so well; hence cannot answer to the whistle
or word of command as efficiently from a distance. They
should be as pricked as a cat's for this reason.
The teeth sound, strong and evenly spaced, gripping with
a scissor-bite the lower incisors close behind and just
touching the upper. As the dog is required to move difficult
cattle by heeling or biting, teeth, which are, sound and
strong are very important.
An older dog with worn teeth should not be heavily penalised,
but any dog that did not have a correct scissor bite would
indicate lack of strength as a biter. It is not a requirement
of the breed to have 42 well placed teeth and with 2 of
the original breeds that make up the Australian Cattle
Dog commonly plagued with missing teeth it would be difficult
to expect full dentition, therefore, an obviously superior
specimen should never be penalised for a SMALL number
(I believe more than 4 missing should be penalised) of
missing teeth.
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