"Real Shows"

There have been some comments on the Agility Form regarding the approach to independent and Kennel Club shows. I feel very strongly about this, and it annoys me no end when people refer to Kennel Club shows as the “real thing” and independent as “training” or “practise” shows.

I’m mainly referring to BAA or UKA shows here, which are seperate umbrella organisations for clubs to run shows under. A series of shows run by one club under their own rules may well be viewed as a training show, but in my opinion BAA/UKA offer a proper organisational system of competition which is perfectly equal to Kennel Club. The only difference is the size of the shows, and as long as the attitude exists that these shows aren’t “real shows”, people won’t enter them and they won’t get the same amount of entries.

What really annoys me is that this attitude infers that the achievements of my dog as somehow lesser than if she’d won at a Kennel Club show. I’m sorry, but winning a class of 180 dogs is a much bigger achievement than winning a class of 6 dogs. Winning Introductory Medium Dog of the Year for showing consistent high placings is a much bigger acheivement than the 4 or 5 classes won at Kennel Club where Kim was not at her best but there simply was no competition. When Kim came home having won her first Agility class of 160+ dogs, running at a high standard, several people said “great! Now you’ll have to do it at Kennel Club!” Those same people seemed to think it was a greater achievement for Kim to win her class of 16 dogs at Lincoln a few months later. They seemed to think it was better to have beaten three ancient Shelties, a dog that can’t weave and a runaway Poodle than to have beaten some of the top up-and-coming Large Border Collies who train with some of the top trainers in the country.

Can somebody please explain to me why this is? Somehow the idea that BAA shows are somehow worse than Kennel Club, that the standard is lower or that everyone just goes to train their dogs and not to actually be competitive or win anything. The standard of competition is higher at BAA shows for my dog. The amount of competition is greater. Some people do turn up to use the shows as training runs for their dogs, in preperation for the “real thing”, but personally, I would happily use a Kennel Club show as a warm-up for my dog’s upcoming BAA show. Not only that, but BAA are more innovative; they’re currently the only organisation to offer up-to-date League Tables and online results publishing.

Unless someone can offer me a valid explanation for this attitude of only Kennel Club is a real agility competition, please have a bit of respect for the achievements of me and my dog. We’ve worked hard for them, and just because they weren’t at Kennel Club doesn’t mean they’re somehow lesser. The Americans here are way beyond us, as they recognise all the organisations equally and don’t consider that titles or Q’s under certain banners might be somehow lesser than another.

(Incidently, this is mainly a defence of the BAA but frankly after their attitude towards certain people who pioneered those new innovations and were the foundation of many a show, I’m not sure they deserve defending. Feel free to read UKA for BAA instead, it’s equally applicable).