Dogs who move carrying the correct topline will be the ones most likely to exhibit the correct reach and drive underneath the body.
Source: Moving Toplines
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Gordon Setter Expert 
Many of the questionable toplines pictures can be attributed to handling errors. I know that my own dogs toplines exhibit better “snapshots’ when a skilled handler moves my dogs at the correct speed. I do not move at a fast enough gait to bring out the best that my dogs can exhibit. We can not generalize “correct” or “incorrect” toplines from a single picture.
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I hear what you’re saying Laurie, and agree with exceptions You’re right, sometimes a topline is destroyed by improper handling, holding the dog back, stringing him up and all the other stuff that sometimes happens in the ring. Once a person is comfortable finding and noting correct toplines, that same person will also be able to tell when the topline may be caused by handler error or if it’s a fault in the dog. In the case of these photos however, it may be very possible that these dogs normally do not move the way the snapshot happened to capture them…but for the purposes of illustrating a moving topline fault the photo was the best example I had to show a new person how certain faults look on the moving dog. I think I covered this in my “disclaimer” in the first paragraph. We’re not generalizing that the dog in the photo is correct or incorrect, we’re simply using the photo, capturing a single moment, that happened to be an example we could use for a teaching moment. Thanks for opening this discussion!
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