settingup

Setting your animal up or posing is a skill that all judges and breeders need to learn. Posing can be different for every breed in the aspect that some breeds are posed more upright than others. The main thing is that an animal should be allowed to be comfortable when posed. For this article we will be posing the Mini Rex typed animal (Dutch, Mini Rex, Florida White, etc.)

Set the animal with it's hind feet firmly beneath the animal. The toes and the knees of the back legs should be in a direct line with each other (let's forget about that "hip alignment" thing...please see Kelly's article about Imperfect Standards and you will see why). Make sure that the feet aren't tucked too far up underneath the bunny nor too far back. When the toes and knee are properly alligned you will see the true depth of hindquarter. Now that you have the hind feet set correctly, set the front feet. The toes should be in line with the corner of the eye. Now, with shorter boned animals this may not be 100% possible. In this case, try to set with the BACK corner of the eye or where ever the animal feels most comfortable.

How do you know if your animal is comfortable???

What do you do when you are uncomfortable? You move. You shift your weight, step to the side, or step forward or back.

How do you get them to sit long enough to tell if they are comfortable or not? That is up to my type book to teach you....here, we will just discuss if the animal is comfortable in its position.

Ok, now that you have your bunny sitting still...and probably still in your hand...let the bunny go. If they are still (feet not moving) but their body slumps either forward or backward or off to one side they aren't comfortable with the way you set them and you will not see their true type. Reset them so that when you let go the body doesn't move. THIS is their true type, like it or not. If you don't like what you see...at least now you can BREED for what you want to see.

I see so many people PUSH their hand back into the rabbit forcing the rabbit to push into the hand and creating an incredible topline...but can you HONESTLY correctly evaluate an animal that is pushed up like this? In my opinion, no you can't. You are manually modifying the shape of the animal. Not only does this give YOU an incorrect impression of an animal it gives your BUYERS an incorrect impression as well. You must provide them with the most accurate pictures available so that they are happy with their purchase and it is as close as possible to the ACTUAL animal they are buying.

Another thing that this will help you with is when a judge looks at your animal from a bit of a distance. Think about (or start watching now) how many times a judge will set an animal up and then step back and look at an animal while he is judging. Don't you want YOUR animal to look it's best from this vantage point? I thought so.

If you set up like this...and you get a judge that LOOKS at animals like this you will do very well on the tables...but...more likely the judge you end up with will not be scrunching your animals so if you want shorter animals BREED for them...don't scrunch them!