American dogs are quite different of European dogs even though the standards are not so different. Very often there is mentioned great movement of American type dogs. I don’t know if it has changed in recently, or do I understand Samoyed movement differently. Surely you can’t make generalizations, but what I have mainly seen is too flashy, erratic movement that doesn’t seem durable. The height measurements are the same in US and FCI standards, but you often see very high dogs is US, huge bones, long hocks, unbalanced angulations and unbalanced not durable movement. Sometimes they remind me more of American Akitas than of Arctic Spitz. Also, often their expressions are different from “smiling expression”. At the same time, European samoyeds are quite often with too light bones, short steps with no reach and drive and too much coat which also makes the use of the breed complicated. I’ve visited Australia and it was interesting to see their dogs. They use the UK standard there. I saw many beautiful dogs, whose type is similar to European Samoyeds, but they have more substance, excellent fronts, balanced angulation, and a typical ground covering and correct neck position move204
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ment. I also saw some dogs being too heavy and too low on legs. BIS: How has the breed changed over the years? Would you say we have involved for the good or for the worst? K.U.: I’d say the quality has not been improving lately. In last years, I have found it almost impossible to find a males with “new blood”. When I started, I was looking for an excellent breed specimen with super temperament and health results. Today, I would be happy to find a correct healthy dog with good health tests and temperament. Why the quality of the dogs has been going down? I think there are many reasons and we would need much another magazine to write it all down. All breeds suffer these times when their general quality declines, but they will be followed by better times for sure. I think long time breeders are experiencing this also in their breeding job – there are times you have to think more of the so called pedigree matings, so you can later do the linebreedings to keep the type. But I think a reason for the decline in quality is that people are using the same popular dogs for their breeding. They are getting popular because of the