If you’re a casual dog person who doesn’t fully understand breed standards, and don’t really want to, you’re about to learn something in spite of yourself. Identify the head silhouettes below by breed:

 

We’re betting you were able to name most, if not all the breeds of each dog based on a silhouette of its head.  Pat yourself on the back, you’ve just demonstrated your ability to recognize breed type, or at least the first stages of it. In the very simplest of terms, the characteristics that set one breed apart from others is type. It’s what makes a Beagle not look like a Basset Hound. The upturned muzzle of a Boxer or Pointer, the rounded “apple dome” skull of a Chihuahua, the blunt wedge of the Doberman Pinscher’s profile…these are visual clues that help us identify a breed by its head. Ears, coat (furnishings), the muzzle – these are all elements that set type.

Type is often dictated by a breed’s purpose. The Pointer’s dish-face and converging head planes made it easier, early breeders believed, for the dog to pick up air-borne scent. The long, low-set ears of a Bloodhound and masses of loose wrinkles help a Bloodhound trap scent cells. Below, we’re going to add another example, and you’ll known the breed immediately by its silhouette:

The Bull Terrier was “originally the ‘bull and terrier,’ …a merging of three different breeds which are ideally blended to be the dog which is described in [the] Breed Standard” (from “Type in the Bull Terrier” by W.E. Macay-Smith).  Its ancestors controlled vermin, but, sadly, were also used for bull baiting and blood sport. Function impacted breed form.

There are diverging planes in the head of a Bull Terrier, but no hollows, no indentations, no cavities or dimples. It is a singular head shape somewhat large in proportion to its body, and is one that is often described as “egg shaped” because in profile, it curves gently downwards from the top of the skull to the tip of the nose. This clean, sweeping, unbroken profile without a stop, but with a down-faced appearance was developed in the belief that it gave the dog stronger jaws to grab hold and combat a stronger or larger animal.

To a casual observer, the head is a solid unit – a brick, if you will, with no discernable vulnerable spots, and that’s what early breeders intended. Since a dog’s head is the first thing we see as he or she approaches us, it “sets the tone,” if you will, for what might follow.  Work with us here, but as we see it, it’s not unlike what happens when we see a lady’s foot emerge out of a car (a popular vehicle often used to introduce a feminine character in a movie):

What we see in this photo is a slender leg in blue jeans, and a foot wearing stiletto platforms in a color that tends to elongate a lady’s legs. The total look suggests that the woman who will emerge out of the car will be youngish, stylish, and perhaps a bit “edgy” for having paired jeans with stiletto pumps.

With the Bull Terrier’s piercing glint, varminty expression, and set of a powerful jaw and neck, we expect a strongly built, and muscular body to follow such a “no-nonsense” head, and that’s what we get.