BODY TYPE - 1
It is very important to remember in this section that these pictures depict either 8 week old puppies or fully mature adults. None of the puppy pictures are of puppies older than 8 weeks of age--unless indicated. If you take pictures of your own puppy or puppies, make sure you take them as close to 8 weeks of age as is possible to compare them to these pictures. Puppies older than 8 weeks begin to show more leg, tend to 'lean out' in body (not look as full) and this gets more and more exaggerated as they grow until they start to fill out again and mature. Do not compare your puppy pictures to these unless they are 8 weeks old in the pictures!!
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BODY: Short coupled with ribs well spring but not barreled. Chest moderately deep, leaving ample heart room. Back level, leading into strong, muscular hindquarters. Slightly less body at the flank then at the rib, but with no tucked-up appearance.
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Here are pictures of 4 puppies at 8 weeks of age. The puppies on the right are longer in back than the puppies on the left. The blenheim puppy on the bottom left is quite short in body--notice how much space is between the elbow and where the hind leg starts as compared to the other puppies.
All 4 of these puppies have decent depth of body and pretty good length of leg. Depth of body is topline to bottom of chest/abdomen. Length of leg is from surface they are standing on to bottom of chest/abdomen. All 4 have decent substance as well--substance being how full the body looks.
Here is a picture of a Cavalier, both as a puppy and as an adult, depicting a longer back.
The pictures below compare a puppy (on the left) with proper depth of body and length of leg to a puppy (on the right) who is too high in leg. The puppy on the right does have decent bone and substance, just too much leg below him--too much air showing underneath.
Here is a Cavalier, depicted as both a puppy and as an adult showing too much
leg.
The pictures below depict a puppy lacking substance with one who has proper substance. You will note that they are both about the same height and both have approximately the same amount of bone (the one on the right appears to have a tinch more but in reality she also has more hair which gives the appearance of more bone). Still it is obvious the puppy on the right has a fuller looking body in every way. She has more substance than the girl on the left and is more correct than the girl on the left.
