.com Forum · Obedience Forum

This topic doesn't seem to be covered very well in the Help Center and I'm coming up dry in my search for a basic guide to how this works. Can someone point me to a good overview?

I've got my first dog with it's CD and I'm working on the next group of tasks. Do I just wait until those are at 20 and enter another obedience show? I get the impression there's more to it from some of the postings here. Like the Novice A and B and stuff.

I haven't a clue, but I can tell you from my own experience that my Mals obedience is all sessioned to 19 and he has quickly earned his CDX. I just entered him in a Obedience show for every day. I guess he is now working on his UD? Still slightly confused about the whole A vs B and Novice vs Open, etc. But so far we're coming along good.

TCrown

A vs B

if neither you nor your dog have ever achieved a CD (for Novice) then you get entered in the Novice A class.

When your dog has achieved its CD your entries are moved to the Open A class. If you're not ready for Open yet, you can opt to keep trialling in Novice - but you get moved to Novice B so that you don't win against the newies in Novice A and are up against more experienced dogs and handlers.

Similarly in Open and Utility.

Better?

But if all dogs are trained to a 20 in everything, how can you not be ready for open? Is there something else that affects how the dog shows in obedience?

And why would someone compete other than to get the individual obedience titles for their dogs? Doesn't it just come down to how well the dog scores not what competition it's up against?

Sorry if there are so many questions but it's not clear to me.

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posted by speedy2
A vs B

if neither you nor your dog have ever achieved a CD (for Novice) then you get entered in the Novice A class.

When your dog has achieved its CD your entries are moved to the Open A class. If you're not ready for Open yet, you can opt to keep trialling in Novice - but you get moved to Novice B so that you don't win against the newies in Novice A and are up against more experienced dogs and handlers.

Similarly in Open and Utility.

Better?

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Thank you for explaining.

I understand the explanation it just doesn't answer my questions about how this works. Primarily, why would you care who you are competing with?

Here's how I thought it worked - you train your dog in the different obedience tasks. You show your dog. If it's been trained to a high enough rating, the dog will pass (qualify?). Then you have a CD after 3 passing shows. At no point, does it appear that the other dogs in the show impact in my dog's ability to pass and eventually get the CD. Basically, if it's trained high enough it gets it. I thought that would be the same for the other titles. Eventually you have a dog that has all the obedience titles. End of story.

But it seems there is more to it. Where does the competition between dogs come in as far as obedience is concerned?

The follow up question assuming there is some competition in the show, if every dog is trained to a level 20 in all their obedience tasks, how will they differentiate between them? Are there other items that impact their scoring in obedience?