General Appearance. The Dalmatian should represent a strong, muscular, and active dog, poised and alert, free of shyness, intelligent in expression, symmetrical in outline and free from courseness and lumber. He should be capable of great endurance, combined with a fair amount of speed.

Head: Should be of a fair length, the skull flat, proportionately broad between the ears, and moderately well defined at the temples, and not in one straight line from the nose to the occiput bone as required for example, in a Bull Terrier. It should be entirely free from wrinkle.

Muzzle: Should be long and powerful - the lips clean. Mouth should have a scissors bite.

Eyes: Should be set moderately well apart and of medium size, round, bright and sparkling, with an intelligent expression; their colour greatlyepending on the markings of the dog. In the black spotted variety, the eyes should be dark (black, brown or blue). In the liver spotted variety, they should be lighter than in the black spotted variety (golden or light brown or blue). The rim around the eyes on the black spotted should be black, on the liver spotted variety, brown. Never flesh coloured in either.

Ears: Set moderately high, moderate in size, rather wide at the base, tapering to a rounded point and carried close to the head, thin and fine in texture and preferably spotted.

Nose: In the black spotted variety, should always be black, in the liver spotted always brown. A butterfly or flesh coloured nose is a major fault.

Neck and Shoulders: The neck should be fairly long, nicely arched, free from throatiness. Shoulders should be oblique, clean and muscular.

Body, Back, Chest and Loins: The chest should not be too wide, but very deep and capacious, ribs well sprung but never rounded like barrel hoops. Back: powerful, loin strong, muscular and slightly arched.

Legs and Feet: Of great importance. Forelegs should be straight, strong and heavy of bone, elbows close to body, feet compact, well arched toes with tough, elastic pads. In the hind legs the muscles should be clean, though well defined, hocks well let down. Nails: In the black spotted should be black or white, in the brown spotted variety, should be brown or white, in both varieties a nail may contain both the desired colours.

Tail: Should ideally reach the hock joint, strong at the insertion and tapering toward the end, free from courseness. It should not be inserted too low down, but carried with a slight curve upwards and never curled.

Coat: Should be short, hard, dense and fine, sleek and glossy in appearance, neither wooly nor silky.

Colour and Markings: Are most important points. The ground colour in both varieties should be pure white, very decided and not intermixed. The colour of the spots in the black spotted variety should be dense black, in the liver spotted variety they should be liver brown. Spots should not intermingle, but be as round and well defined as possible, the more distinct the better. No patches allowed - a true patch is a solid, sharply defined mass of either black or liver that is appreciably larger than any of the markings on the dog. Round spots that are so adjacent they actually touch one another at their edges does not constitute a patch.

Size: The desirable height of dogs and bitches is btween 19 and 23 inches at the withers.