Piccolo Levriero Italiano

FCI:

Piccolo Levriero Italiano - Group X - Sighthounds, Section 3 - Shorthaired sighthounds.

General Appearance:

It is gentle but fearless, malleable, but to unknown persons particularly restrained dog. It has to be calm and confident. It cannot miss the pride and should never be timid or aggressive. It is very devoted to its owner, which it loves. It gets noble, but if necessary, it is pretty cunning and able to benefit from its size. If it lives in a household with some great canine companion it enforce reliably so that it always prefer large dog that it retreats. Also, thanks to its cleverness can successfully "tame" the owner and not necessarily just by being ill-mannered, it always manages to find a way to trick nicely and reach all. It is the smallest of all Greyhounds, but still rightly regarded as Greyhound racing, although primarily a social breed.

Temperament/Behaviour:

As each Greyhound is rather introverted based, so when education owner must proceed gently, with great passion, but absolutely consistently, always with caution and calm, not to disturb the relationship based on absolute trust.  It hurts too harsh tone of voice and any rudeness would have destroyed the mentally. Praising must without touching pat rebuke should be reproachful rather than threatening or angry, the intonation dog at its intelligence to understand what it can and cannot do. It is docile and obedience to its particular problems do not, but "training" it must be fun, and it must be involved and preferably a treat.

As part of socialization should have the opportunity to become acquainted gradually with different kinds of environment, other dogs, pets, humans etc. As every Greyhound loves to move, but it is very adaptable, and when its size does bearer in this regard such claims as large breeds Greyhounds.

Body:

It's a small, delicately built, charming but not brittle or weak dog, picture perfect elegance and grandeur small. The format of the body is a square, or slightly shorter. Height at the withers should be males and females in the range from 32 to 38 cm and the weight does not exceed 5 kg by male or female

The head is elongated, narrow and thin. It is carried almost horizontally, which is associated with holding the neck. Length of the skull is equal to half the length of the head. Imaginary extension of the topline forward should be viewed from the side parallel to the muzzle. Under the eyes they must be completed and must never be forfeited. The frontal slope (stop) is only weakly indicated.

Muzzle should be pointed and may be short. The nose is dark, preferably black, with wide open nostrils. Lips are thin, narrow, dry, on the edges of dark colour. Teeth should be healthy bite is required scissors. The eyes are large, round and strong, iris should be dark in colour. Earlobes must be high, small, thin, folded back. Attach the upper neck.

Line of neck carried fairly high neck when viewed from the side, slightly arched and passed quite suddenly sharper bend in topline. Amid the neck is a thin skin, easily palpable trachea. Topline body must form a graceful curve free of any sharp breaks. Withers is quite distinctive, spine straight, well muscled. The loin should be slightly arched and flow into strongly sloping, wide and muscled hindquarters. The tail should be low and should never be carried above the top line of the body. It must always be covered with short hair.

Chest should be thin, firm, elegantly modelled, with slightly arched ribs and deep so that it reaches to the elbows. The bottom line of the body is made up of the sternum and rather short but significant costal arch and merges smoothly into the abdomen, which should be tucked up significantly. Flanks are rolled up.

The forelegs should be straight, in an attitude perpendicular to the substrate, dryly muscled. Their bones may not be obvious. Forearms should be straight and perfectly perpendicular to the substrate as viewed from the side and front. Front feet should be nearly oval shape and should be small, with arched and tightly knit toes.

The hindquarters must be viewed from the rear, completely straight, parallel to each other, and when viewed from the side properly angulated. Hocks and fetlocks are just below the seating bumps in the pan. When viewed from behind should be parallel instep, ankle nor the divergent or convergent. Feet are less oval (shorter) than the forequarters, with arched and tightly knit toes.

The skin on the entire body except for the elbows should fit closely to the skeletal muscle and subcutaneous tissue, elbows is less tense. The coat should be short and mild, without a trace after each long hair and its colour must be uniform, black, grey, blue (slate grey) or light fawn (beige, Isabella) in all possible shades. White markings are only permissible on the chest and front paws.