Tegan Learn about coats and colours

COAT TYPES

There are Fleece coats - and then there are Fleece coats!

Beautiful Correct Fleece Coat -every strand the same. If shaved, it will not bunch into tight curls but will grow back its lovely loose Staples.	Poor Quality Fleece Coat On a closer look you will find a % of hair through the whole body.
Wool	Spiral Fleece

The Wool coat will matt very easily as it is a mix of two coats. Wool coats are now improving in leaps and bounds. The new successor is called a Spiral Fleece, In time to come with more breed development the wool coat will become a thing of the past.	This used to be called a curly fleece, it has the luxuriance of the fleece with a slight wool "feel" and is more dense than the fleece. It is now breeding more reliably and has been given its own identity the "Spiral Fleece" this superb coat has all the benefits of the wool coat without the care problems.

Kemp fibres in a Wool Coat	Kemp fibres in a Fleece Coat
Kemp is a coarse micron fibre which is a chalky white in colour. It appears in goats with poor quality fleece, and in sheep with poor quality wool. Kemp occurred in the Labradoodle during the coat mutation of the Poodle. Kemp is brittle so will break and appear to shed. It is uncommon nowadays to find it in the latest generations of the Australian Labradoodle. Kemp is not present in the coats of puppies, but develops as the dog matures.
SPIRAL FLEECE	WAVY FLEECE
The correct Fleece Coat, whether Curly or Wavy, will ripple and flow when the dog runs. The Wool Coat will stay put when the dog is in movement.
Flat Coat In many breeds of dogs even those that boast 80-100 years of pure breed existence will have a throw back resembling their ancestry, This is true for the Australian Companion dog Occasionally a Flatcoat will appear in a litter. They have a distinct look and are quite beautiful but they do shed in varying degrees.

WHAT IS CONFORMATION ? Conformation describes the anatomy of the animal. Conformation is 'form to function'. Breed Standards go into a lot of detail about the required conformation for every breed whether it be dog, horse or other animal. This is not done just for the 'look' of the animal, but to ensure that they continue to be bred in such a way that they remain suitable for the purpose for which they were originally developed. Trotting dogs have different conformation to galloping dogs. Dogs who hunt and run with their noses to the ground have different conformational structure than dogs who don't, and so on. In four legged animals all impulsion (movement) begins at the hind end. But there needs to be balance between hindquarters and forequarters and a strong connecting back in between. If the hind legs reach far forward in a deep stride but the shoulder angulation is too upright to allow a long enough stride in front for the hind legs to come underneath them, then the impulsion is interfered with, the stride becomes uneven and stress is placed on various parts of the dog's anatomy. A racehorse needs a tuck up in the flank to allow its hindquarters to come well underneath it for galloping. But a draught horse who needs slow pulling power, does not have this tuck up in the flank. Similarly, a galloping dog has a tuck up in the flank whereas a trotting dog doesn't as the mechanics of its movement are different. When we talk about 'balance' in the structure of the dog, what we mean, is that the angulation of bone and therefore the connecting tissues of muscles, ligaments and tendons, needs to have the same angles in front as it has behind. This ensures an effortless flowing movement which puts the least strain on the anatomy.