Dog ears, tails and muzzles: a visual glossary of feature shapes

How to use this glossary

Find the word, read the plain meaning, then check it against the dog — a definition only earns its place if it matches something you can see. These terms come from breed-club vocabulary, so the reference this page follows is the AKC's official glossary (opens in a new tab), which collects the words breed standards are written in.

A caution that applies to every definition here: a feature word describes a shape. It does not confirm a breed, and on a mixed dog it describes that dog's ears or tail, not an inheritance you can count. Shape words are the observation; the name you put on the dog comes later, if at all.

Ear sets: prick, drop, rose, bat, button, semi-pricked

Ear words describe two things at once: whether the ear stands or folds, and where it sits on the head — the "set". Photo captions and breed descriptions lean on these six shapes most.

prick ear

An erect, pointed ear that stands up and away from the head — the upright triangle familiar from shepherd-type dogs.

drop ear

The ear leather folds over and hangs rather than standing; the classic spaniel or hound ear.

rose ear

A small drop ear that folds over and back, revealing the inner ear — the neat rose shape seen on sighthounds.

bat ear

An upright ear with a broad base and a rounded top, the opening facing forward — proportionally large, as on a French Bulldog.

button ear

A small, neat ear whose flap folds forward to cover the ear opening — the tidy fold of many terriers.

semi-pricked

Erect at the base with the tip folding forward — halfway between a prick ear and a button fold; the collie's familiar tip-over.

Two more ear words you may meet in a description: cropped — ear leather trimmed surgically to encourage the ear to stand — and flying ears, the glossary's term for drop or semi-prick ears that lift while the dog moves. Ear position changes constantly with attention and mood, so name the resting shape, not the alert one.

Tails: sickle, curled, sabre, straight — and what carriage adds

Tail words split into two kinds: the shape of the tail itself, and the carriage — how it is held, which is half of what a photo freezes. The glossary's tail set adds a third: how the base sits on the rump, high or low, before carriage even begins.

sabre tail

Carried in a semicircle — the gentle upward curve the word suggests. "Sickle" is used loosely for much the same sweep.

ring tail / curled

Carried up and around almost in a circle — the full curl of many spitz-type dogs.

whip tail / straight

Carried out stiffly straight and pointed — the pointer's working flag.

otter tail

Thick at the root, round and tapering, with the hair parted underneath — the Labrador's rudder.

screw tail

Naturally short and twisted in a spiral formation — the fixed corkscrew of breeds like the Bulldog.

gay tail

Carried above the horizontal level of the back — upright without necessarily curling.

flag

A long tail carried high with feathering on the underside — the setter's display.

brush

A bushy tail heavy with hair — shape rather than carriage.

bobtail / docked

Born without a tail, or with a tail docked very short — worth noting because a bobbed tail changes what "carriage" can mean in a photo.

Carriage words travel with posture: the glossary describes a tail circling over the back as "making a wheel", and the same tail can sit differently when the dog is relaxed, focused or cold. Read the resting carriage in a calm photo before you read anything into the alert one.

Muzzle and head: stop, flews, snipy and the two skull directions

Head vocabulary splits into the foreface — the part of the head before the eyes — and the topskull behind it. These are the terms photo readings and breed descriptions reach for.

stop

The step where the skull meets the muzzle — shallow and sloping on a collie, deep and abrupt on a pug.

flews

The pendulous parts of the upper lip, particularly at the inner corners — the hang you see on hounds and mastiffs. "Chops" and "jowls" name the same pendulous flesh of the lips and jaw.

snipy

A pointed, weak-looking muzzle lacking breadth and depth — usually a criticism in a breed standard, not a compliment.

down-faced

A muzzle inclining downwards from the skull to the tip of the nose — the downward plane seen in some bull-type profiles.

dish-faced

A slight concaveness of the foreface in profile — the middle of the muzzle sitting lower than its ends.

apple head / domed

A round-shaped skull — apple head for the pronounced roundness, domed for an evenly curved topskull.

occiput

The back point of the skull — the bump you can feel at the rear of the head on some dogs.

Two broader words describe the direction the whole skull takes. A brachycephalic head is short and broad — the flat-faced pattern of pugs, bulldogs and boxers. A dolichocephalic head is long and narrow — the greyhound direction. Neither is a glossary entry or a breed label; they are the shape words vets use, and they matter for one practical reason: very short-muzzled dogs can work harder to breathe, especially in heat or under exertion — the exercise guide's flat-faced section covers pacing effort, and anything beyond everyday comfort is a vet conversation.

Why feature words help — and where they mislead

Feature vocabulary earns its keep as description: "a button-eared, ring-tailed dog" tells a groomer, a vet or a rescue something a guessed breed label can't. It misleads the moment it is asked to carry more. The same word shifts slightly between breed standards — the AKC's breeds-by-group pages (opens in a new tab) organise over two hundred breeds whose standards each bend these shared terms — photographs freeze one moment of a moving ear or tail, and mixed dogs combine features without following any single description.

Feature words also travel with a caveat the glossary keeps quietly: some entries describe the result of cropping or docking — surgical alterations that change an ear's set or a tail's length. Words like these describe what is visible; they say nothing about whether a feature came by birth or by procedure, and nothing at all about health or temperament. For the texture-and-colour half of the same vocabulary, the coat and markings glossary covers the words a coat carries.

A useful handoff: Ears, tail, head — three zones of description are worth more than one confident guess at a breed.