Posing Commercial Breeds
A proper pose is necessary to evaluate a rabbit. Improper posing can make a good rabbit look terrible or can hide certain faults. It is best to place your rabbit on a grooming table or a square of carpet to give them proper traction. You may need to work with your rabbit to teach them to pose properly before you can get a good assessment of them. To pose a commercial rabbit, toe placement is vital! Front toes should line up with the pupil of the eye, and the rear toe should line up with the front of the knee. The elbows should be resting on the table, and the head should be dropped a bit so the chin is a bit tucked. Below are some properly posed commercial rabbits with good commercial body type.
Posing Problems!
Let's look at some specific posing issues. The most common one is over posing a rabbit (pushing the rear feet too far forward). This can cause a rabbit to look undercut, though it does often artificially make the depth look nicer and the body look a bit shorter.
Wrapping your hand up by the ears (top photo) tends to make rabbits elongate artificially as they push up against your hand. Instead, put your hands only on the front of the head (bottom photo).
The top rabbit's hind feet are a bit behind the front of the knee. Pushing them forward a bit would help the depth of topline and round out the hindquarter a bit more. The bottom rabbit's hind feet are way behind the front of the knee. This has caused a severe artificial slope to the hindquarters. Notice I also have my hands around the ears in these photos, another no no (but sometimes the only way to get squirrely babies to hold still for a photo!)
Top and bottom photos are the exact same rabbit rabbit, photos taken a few minutes apart. This shows how a rabbit hunching a little more can drastically alter the topline!
Front feet are too far forward and hind feet are way too far forward. She was just completely hunched up funky!
Front feet are too far back and hind feet are too far forward. Look how undercut and pinched it makes her look, and it also lengthens out the shoulder due to the front feet not being placed right.
And sometimes, you just have an onery baby who refuses to even make an attempt. He was pretending he was a full arched breed. All you can do with those ones is keep working with them a little each day! Pose, and if they hold it for even a second, give them a treat or play with them so they learn that posing is fun!
Bad Posing or Bad Structure?
But what about poor body type? How do you know if a rabbit is pose incorrectly or just bad type? Again, always look at where the toes line up!
This harlequin has his front toe right under his pupil and his hind toe lined up with his knee. Yet his type is still excessively long! Just bad type, not bad posing!
This harlequin's shoulders look a little bit long. Check where his front toes are. They are a bit too far back (he was fighting being posed!), which can affect the shoulder profile. His hind toes are nicely lined up, though.
This doe's toes are lined up properly, but she still appears just a bit long in the shoulder there. Likely that is a structural, not a posing problem.