Appearance
The Dalmatian is a well-muscled, mid-sized dog with excellent endurance. Known for its elegance, they have a body type similar to the
Pointer. The feet are round and compact with well-arched toes. The nails are either white and/or the same color as the spots. The ears are thin, tapering toward the tip, set fairly high and carried close to the head.
Size
The ideal Dalmatian should stand between 19 and 24 inches at the withers and weighs from 45 to 70 pounds fully grown. Breed standards for showing sometimes call for more specific sizes. The United Kingdom standard for instance, calls for a height between 22 and 24 inches. Males are generally slightly larger than females.
Coat and Color
Coat
Dalmatian puppies (averaging eight per litter) are born with white fur and develop their spots at two to three weeks of age. Spots will become evident after a week or so, and develop rapidly during the first few weeks. Spots will continue to develop both in number and size throughout the dog's life, though at a slower pace as the dog gets older. The coat is short, dense and fine. The ground color is white with round, well-defined spots of uniform color, either black or one of the brown shades. Lemon, orange, blue, tricolor and brindle spots very rarely also occur.
Unlike many double-coated dogs, such as Siberian Huskies and German Shepherd Dogs, Dalmatians shed their short, fine coats year round. Dalmatians shed considerably more than most year-round shedding dogs. Nothing can be done to prevent their excessive shedding. new owners must be prepared to deal with a lot of dog hairs constantly littering their households.
Coloring
The most common colors for Dalmatians are black spotted or liver spotted on a white background. Other spotting colors, though not permissible for showing and rare, are blue (a blue-grayish color), orange or lemon (dark to pale yellow), brindle, mosaic, tricolored (may appear on any other colored spots), and two-toned.
According to the American Kennel Club (AKC) breed standard, the eyes are set moderately well apart, are medium sized and somewhat rounded in appearance, and are set well into the skull. Eye color is brown, amber, blue or any combination thereof. The darker the better and usually darker in black-spotted than in liver-spotted dogs. While blue eyes are accepted by the AKC, the Continental Kennel Club (CKC) faults any eye color other than black, brown or amber.