Obedience competitors work at different levels, or classes, according to their own, and their dog's, experience and previous success. Although each class has a higher level of difficulty, the types of the exercises remain similar all the way through the classes: heelwork, recall, retrieve, sendaway, distant control, scent and stays.

Heelwork
Each judge will design a pattern of heelwork (it looks rather like a rail map) that each dog and handler in the class will complete.  The complexity and content is dependent upon the class being judged.  It is quite simple and straightforward for the Beginner and Novice classes, straight lines with right left and right about turns.  Class B introduces changes of pace, slow and fast.  Class C heelwork can involve circles, weaves and multiple turning manoeuvres.

Recall
In Beginner and Novice this is a recall to sit in front of the handler.  The dog must wait while the handler walks away, turns and calls the dog to sit neatly in front and then go to heel.  In Class A it is a recall to heel.  The handler walks away and then calls the dog while continuing to walk forwards.  The dog must catch up and walk to heel with the handler as in heelwork until told to stop.

Retrieve
In all classes the dog sits at the handler’s side while an article is thrown.  It is then sent to retrieve it, return smartly to sit in front, give up the article and then go to heel.  Beginner dogs can retrieve whatever their handler provides, Novice and Class A it is a dumbbell, in Class B and C the judge will provide a similar article for each dog.  The stipulations are that no item can be food; it must be clearly visible and capable of being picked up by each dog.

Sendaway
The dog is sent to a designated place within the ring, it must drop to the down smartly on command from the handler.  Then wait until called to heel as class A above.  The sendaway area is usually set out by markers.  The judge will stipulate where the dog must land within it.  During it career a dog will be expected to cope with various sendaway areas and so be expected to run to a single marker and land in front on one occasion or drop in the centre of a triangle the next or square of markers or run through the markers by a set distance.  This makes this test quite difficult to teach well and requires the dog to understand but not anticipate the various needs of the test.

Distant Control
This is only in class C.  The dog is left in a sit, stand or down position while the handler walks away a distance between 10 and 20 paces.  The dog is then given a combination of 6 positions of sit, stand and down.  The dog must not move more than its body length in any direction during the test.

Scent discrimination
Dogs naturally have a far superior sense of smell to us.  The scent discrimination test is first introduced in Class A where the dog must find a cloth with the handlers scent on it from a line of 5 other blank (non-scented) cloths.  In class B there can be up to 10 cloths set out in any pattern, but this time one has a decoy scent on it.  In class C the dog must locate the cloth with the judges’ scent on it amongst up to 10 others.  There can be multiple decoy cloths here.

Stays
All classes have a sit stay and down stay and all the dogs in the class do these two exercises together as a group.  The dog is expected to remain in the designated position while the handler walks way, out of sight in the higher classes, for a designated time.  It may only move when allowed to do so, on return of the handler to the dogs’ side.  The sit stay ranges from 1 minute, handler in sight in Beginner and Novice to 2 minutes handler out of sight in class C.  The down stay lasts 2 minutes, handler in sight, in Beginner and Novice building up to 10 minutes, handler out of sight in class C.

More information:
Obedience levels of competition

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