Any departure from the foregoing points should be considered a fault and the seriousness with which the fault should be regarded should be in exact proportion to its degree and its effect upon the health and welfare of the dog.
General appearance: Cloddy, lacking elegance, too light or too slender, longer than high, fitting in a rectangle.
Head: Heavy, too strong, lacking parallelism, not sufficiently chiselled or dry, forehead too rounded, stop too accentuated or too flat, muzzle too short or pinched, Roman nose, brow ridges or zygomatic arches too prominent.
Nose, lips and eyelids: Traces of depigmentation.
Dentition: Badly aligned incisors. Serious fault: lack of one incisor (1I), one premolar 2 (1 P2), one premolar3 (1P3) or three premolars 1 (3 P1).
Eyes: Light, round.
Ears: Large, long, too broad at the base, set low, carried outward or inward.
Neck: Slender, short or deep set.
Body: Too long, thoracic cage too broad (cylindrical).
Withers: Flat, low.
Top line: Back and/or loins long, weak, sagging or arched.
Croup: Too sloping, overbuilt.
Underline: Too much or too little let down. Too much belly.
Tail: Set too low, carried too high, forming a hook, deviated.
Limbs: Bone too light or too heavy, bad upright stance in profile (e.g. front pasterns too sloping or weal wrists), from the front (feet turning in or out, out at elbow, etc), or from behind (hind legs too close, too wide apart or barrel shaped, hocks close or open, etc), too little or exaggeratedly angulated.
Feet: Spreading. Gait: Moving close, too short a stride, too little drive, poor back transmission, high stepping action.
Coat: all four varieties: insufficient undercoat.
Groenendael and Tervueren: woolly, wavy, curly hair; hair not long enough.
Malinois: hair half-long where it should be short; smooth-haired; harsh hairs scattered in the short coat; wavy coat.
Laekenois: hair too long, silky, wavy, crisp-haired or short; filled with fine hairs scattered in tufts in the rough hair; hairs too long around the eye or the lower end of the head (the chin); bushy tail.
Colour: for all four varieties: white marking on chest forming tie; white on the feet going beyond toes.
Groenendael: reddish tinges in the coat; grey breeches.
Tervueren: grey.
Tervueren and Malinois: brindle; tints not warm enough; not enough or too much black overlay or set in patches over the body; not enough mask.
Tervueren, Malinois and Laekenois: too light a fawn; a base colour which is very diluted, named washed-out, is considered a serious fault.
Colour: White markings on the chest forming a tie, white on the feet going beyond the toes. Reddish tinges in the coat, grey breeches a serious fault. Temperament: Specimens lacking in self-confidence or overly nervous. DISQUALIFYING FAULTS: Temperament: Aggressive or timid specimens. General appearance: Lack of breed type. Dentition: Overshot, undershot, even if contact is not lost (reverse scissor bite), cross bite, absence of one canine (1 C), one upper carnassial (1 P4) or lower carnassial (1 M1), one molar (1M1 upper jaw or 1 M2, M3 are not taken into account), one premolar 3 (1 P3) plus one other tooth or a total of three teeth (excluding the premolars 1) or more. Nose, lips, eyelids: Strong depigmentation. Ears: Drooping or artificially kept erect. Tail: Missing or shortened at birth or by docking, carried too high and ringed or curled. Coat: Lack of undercoat. Colour: Any colours which do not correspond with those of the described varieties, too widespread white markings on fore chest especially if they reach as far as the neck, white on feet going more than halfway up the front or the back pasterns and forming socks, white markings anywhere other than forechest and toes; lack of mask, including a muzzle of lighter colour than the rest of the coat in Tervueren and Malinois. Size: Outside the limits laid down.