How's this for a BIG cavalier...!

This is Henry. He isn't our dog, he is my mothers dog but we looked afte rhim for two weeks a few months ago. He weighed 12kgs when he first came to us and now they report he is a much more ideal 10kg!
This is what he looked like when he came to us.





I put the last picture in to show the different body shapes between Kokoda and him. Kokoda is very tall and long and lanky, with very small/thin ribcage, whereas henry is shaped more rounded and has shorter legs.
Our previous cavalier Anzac, was shaped like henry and healthily weighed 10.5kg. He was a big cavalier. Compared to Kokoda's 7.2kg.
Cavalier vary a lot in their sizes and shaes it seems. However i think they are definitely breeding them built thinner than they previously did.

Last week Winston and I ran into another cavalier at the pet food store that was about 4 weeks older than him. The other puppy was about the same height, but probably had 3 or 4 pounds more weight than he did. I couldn't see a waist on the other dog at all, and the owner looked at Winston and asked why he's so skinny. He isn't skinny, his shape is actually ideal. It's alarming how many people believe a fat dog is a healthy dog.

Besides the clearly visible waistline, are there any other areas for those of us with older pups to monitor if our Cavaliers are putting on a bit too much weight?
Jessie has a defined waistline, but he has a very broad pigeon chest and a bit of extra chunk around his neck.

We switched him over at 5 months onto adult food, and he was quite a plump puppy, but he has already lost most of his puppy chunk, apart from the chest area.

Thank goodness that poor dog has someone who cares about his health. I once met a ruby Cavalier that I didn't recognize as a Cavalier at all. It had a squished in face and even his poor legs were fat. It was his owner that came over to see us (I was with Max). Her boy was also shaved so I really didn't recognize him. What I did say was "with those ears he looks like he has some spaniel in him" - I was then informed he was 100% Cavalier - oops.

I also met a man out walking this week who recognized both of my dogs as Cavaliers (they aren't that common here but his neighbour had had a blenheim) but asked me if they were very young because the two he knew were much rounder :-(. The thing is the Cavaliers I know (although not too many) aren't overweight. Max is 14" tall and one of the tallest I've seen around here. I've only been to one show but when I do see a group of Cavaliers around here it does seem that breeders in my area do try and keep to the breed standard.