The Beauty is in the Details: Part 2
By Roseann Fucillo
This article forst appeared in the December 2010 AKC GAZETTE

To subscribe to the Gazette, please visit akc.org/pubs.

As we continue to explore the beauty of the Papillon breed and further examine its details, there are several other breed characteristics that deserve mentioning for clarification.

The harelike foot is another detail that accentuates the Papillon’s elegance and fine bones.  The bone shape, as taken through the cross-section of the forearm, is oval, not round.  If a Papillon has the correct oval-shaped bone, he will therefore have the correctly shaped harelike foot as well. Conversely, if a Papillon has a round-shaped bone, he will have the incorrect round-shaped foot.

The coat should be silky, cool to the touch, glisten in the light and flow freely when gaiting.  It has a resilient quality like nylon, repelling dirt, yet delicate as silk with a fine, abundant quality, straight, and lying flat on the back and sides of the body.  A mature Papillon has a profuse frill on the chest. However, there is no undercoat.

The hair on the skull, muzzle, front of forelegs and hind feet to hocks, is short and close. Their ears are well fringed, with the inside covered with silken hair of medium length. The backs of the forelegs and hind legs are covered with feathering, while the rear has abundant “culottes” covering the hocks. The tail is covered with a long, flowing plume. The hair on their feet is short, but fine tufts may appear over toes and grow beyond them, forming a point.  Often the hair at the tips of the feet has a tendency to turn out and is trimmed to a point so as to eliminate an optical illusion.  However, the feet should never be round like a cat foot, or shaved.

The Papillon is not a heavily coated breed like a Maltese or Yorkie, whose coats drag on the ground, but he should have a coat of medium length that allows daylight to peep through under the chest.  Coat may be considered “icing on the cake,” but if a full grown adult, (not a puppy) does not have decent feathering behind their legs, a fair amount of ear-fringing, and culottes that at least meet the hocks, he will look out of condition. 

Another detail is in the proportion.  Papillons should measure from 8 to 11 inches at the withers, with a body that is only slightly more in length in relationship to height, which is proportionate to its size.  Some people are breeding dogs that appear small, but in reality have no leg under them and are too short on leg, with much too long of a body.  When you breed a dog that appears smaller only because of its short legs, you are losing the elegance and compromising the integrity of the entire package.

Papillons descend from the spaniel family and should move like small sporting dogs, covering ground without exaggeration.  Their gait should flow smoothly and be in balance, like every detail which creates this beautiful breed.  Judging this breed can be a difficult task because if one does not know all the details that make its type, it is easy to just award one who is “a moving fool.”  We must be careful too as breeders not to re-create the standard by changing the breed’s proportion and balance. 

The beauty is in the details.

Printed with permission from the AKC Gazette. This article is not to be copied whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

Roseann Fucillo