The Kennel Club has extended by a year the suspension to the regulations which stipulate that dogs must be entered and exhibited in a breed class before exhibiting in an Any Variety Class/Stakes Class, and the regulation that only unbeaten dogs are eligible to compete in a group or best in show competition.
These regulations were first suspended at the beginning of 2015, and during this time the Dog Show Promotion Working Party has analysed the effect of this decision on the dog show scene.
It was anticipated that this decision would not only encourage exhibitors who had dogs entered in both AV/Stakes classes and breed classes to compete in all classes for which they had originally entered, thus reducing the absentee rate for AV classes, but that additional entries would be generated from exhibitors who may not have wished or been eligible to enter their dogs in the scheduled breed classes for any reason. The other benefit is that dogs declared best of breed need not withdraw from AV classes to remain unbeaten for the group competition.
Keith Young, Dog Show Promotion Working Party Chairman, said: "We believe that these changes have had a positive impact on entries especially at championship shows, and have made for better competition in AV/Stakes classes. However, the Kennel Club still has much work to do and we will be using this extra 12 months of the suspension to revise the regulations to formalise the suspension for championship shows and continue with our consultation on the open show scene. The new championship show regulations will be published in draft format for comment in the coming months.”
The Kennel Club has published FAQs to assist show societies and exhibitors with the implications of this policy.
Anyone requiring further information should email our breed shows team.