Gotta disagree some Jimbo, conformation is deeper than what you see from the outside. The way a dog looks from the outside tells you a lot about the bone and muscle structure. Simple things like the pro-sternum protruding tells you how well the front shoulders are built. The topline tells you how well the rearend is put together. I have been a student of APBT conformation for 30 years and how they look has a lot to do with how they can perform. With that being said, sometimes heart just overcomes everything else. That doesn't matter what the dogs job is. The ugly poor built dog just sometimes has more drive to find that hog or keep retrieving or whatever. But if you keep breeding dogs with poor conformation it will come back to bite you.
Without getting too deep, my above definition is exactly what conformation means. Here is a few excerpts from wikipedia.
Conformation in dogs refers solely to the externally visible details of a dog's structure and appearance, as defined in detail by each dog breed's written breed standard. A dog that conforms to most of the items of description in its individual breed standard is said to have good conformation.The breed standard for each breed of dog details desirable and undesirable attributes of appearance and temperament for an individual breed. Due to the great variability in dogs, there is no one standard of good conformation. What is good conformation for a lapdog will not be good conformation for a guard dog; good leg structure for a dog that must travel long distances will not be the same as good leg structure for dogs whose conformation requires short bursts of speed.
Conformation does not go deeper than what you see from the outside. Also how much heart or drive a dog has has nothing to do with conformation. It is simply, the more the dog conforms to the breed standard the better the conformation of the dog. This is how I understand it anyhow. When you enter a dog in a conformation show the dog will be judged against the breed standard. The judge's choice is based upon his/her interpretation of said standard.
