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Cane Corso ID? It’s time for a head profile!

Last time we talked about Cane Corso expression as a very important fact for the Cane Corso head. But expression only doesn’t make a complete ID. Let’s go further and this time add one more part, explain the perfect Cane Corso profile of the head, and get a step closer to a perfect Cane Corso type.

All people want to have a dog with beautiful, big, typical head. But how big Cane Corso head should be to be perfect by standard? That is the right question and I’m going to explain it in detail.

I talked about the Cane Corso size, and its starting point as well for the ideal size of the Cane Corso head. Let’s take some measure of its height and then explain another thing.

The proper way to measure head length?

Head length is the length between the point of the occiput and the point of the top nose.

I am sure everybody knows where the tip of the nose is, but the occiput is the point everybody can touch and usually is visible on the skull, slightly thrown out on the end of the skull. The distance between these two points is the length of the head.

After we determined the length of the head, we shall split the head into two very important parts, its skull, and the muzzle.

For example, we take a dog that is 68cm / 27 inches tall at withers. Standard says about the ideal dog and mentions that the length of the head reaches approximately 1/3 of the height at withers by AKC or around 36% height at withers by FCI. It’s all similar by the way, as no one says exactly measure but approximately. When we split the measure of the height with the required head length, we will take whole numbers and we got almost 25cm / 9 inch as the ideal length of the head.

After we split the head of 25 cm into 3 parts, we get that the ideal length of the skull is 17cm and the muzzle 8cm. ONLY 8 cm, but is ideal on a 68acm tall dog.
After we split the head of 9 inches into 3 parts, we get that the ideal length of the skull is 6 inch and the muzzle 3 inches. ONLY 3 inches, but is ideal on the 27 inches-tall Cane Corso.

“STOP” point?

Everybody of you heard the thing named “Stop” on the Cane Corso head, I’m sure many of you know what that means. For the people who don’t know, here is the explanation:

The stop is the point where the muzzle and skull touch each other or the point which separates the muzzle from the skull.

In some of the upcoming articles, I will talk about stop and how it should looks in quality dogs.

After we split the head into two parts, now we can learn how to properly measure the muzzle. Depending on the length of the skull, the muzzle should be half length of the skull or, if the whole length of the head is split into 3 same parts, the skull has to be 2/3 and the muzzle has to be 1/3. That’s the proper length of the muzzle and the skull.

This is made by computer and very precise measurements to show the ideal profile. Just to remind you that we talk about the perfect Cane Corso profile of the head. It still means that dogs that have profiles close to the ideal, but not the same, are good quality dogs.

Perfect Cane Corso profile – skull

The skull has to be about the square, width is equal to its length, which means that the skull depth has to be about equal to its width and length. This time we will stay focused on the profile. Some of the next articles will explain the front view of the head and skull.

Measured from the stop point to the occiput point and, from the top point of the forehead to the line of the down jaw.

Cane Corso muzzle profile

As I talked already, the muzzle is 1/2 the length of the skull. The nasal bridge is straight. The nose is placed on the same line as the nasal bridge. The muzzle is broad as it’s long. Seen from the side, the muzzle is deep which makes a slight rectangle but close to square.

The very important characteristic for the perfect Cane Corso profile when we talk about the muzzle, is its angle of the muzzle which has to form 90 degrees, as shown on the photo below:

Now the proper way of checking profile head – skull and muzzle lines.

Some people are right, some people are wrong with this. But after this article, all of you will become an expert for the Cane Corso breed.

The very important characteristic of the breed is that the planes of the skull and muzzle are slightly convergent. Before I explain this, let’s check the skull bones first:

Out of many points, this time we are interested in two points. Marked with a red circle on the photo, it’s Nasion ( stop point ) and Inion ( occiput point ). These two points are crucial for the upper horizontal plane which determines the lines of the skull and muzzle. The third point is the point located on the top of the nose. It is connected with the horizontal muzzle line. Now, let’s find the points on the perfect Cane Corso profile.

Now, we will put the lines, first line – the horizontal line is the one following the nasal bridge. This line is the basic one. After we make the visual plane, we will connect Nasion and Inion points. Make another plane from which we will know does Cane Corso has a good convergence or not. Slightly convergent lines of the muzzle and skull are approximately 10 degrees. If the convergence is perfect, it means that line of the skull will touch the top of the nose.

The wrong way of checking!

Some people present themself as experts. They do not know how to check the convergence properly, so they do like this:

This is the convergence of the forehead and muzzle, yes. This is not the convergence of the skull and muzzle. This is not the proper way for checking the convergence of the skull and muzzle, which makes a correct type of dog. A very important characteristic of the breed.

The explanation was all about an important characteristic of the perfect Cane Corso profile of the head. For example, I took the modified adult Cane Corso head. Cane Corso puppy is still not enough big for this test of quality, but good genetic make a high potential that Cane Corso puppy be quality when adult.

Many more articles to come and explain exactly the things how they are.