AKC Events For You And Your Dog

Do you enjoy spending a lot of time with your dog? Is your dog well obedience trained or at least heading in that direction? Have you ever done any agility training with your dog? If you answered yes to any of these questions getting involved in some AKC competitions may be right up your alley. 

Let's start off with obedience training. In years past in order to be involved in AKC obedience training competition you had to have an AKC registered dog. Well in the last couple years that's changed and there are now programs that allow mixed breed dogs to compete in competition as well. So no longer can you use the excuse that my dog isn't a registered AKC dog. 

AKC obedience competition can be fun for you and your dog. It actually involves three different levels of competition. They include the novice class, the open class and the utility class. 

Of course everybody starts off in the novice class where your dog will demonstrate all its exercises including healing, coming when called, sit stays and down stays both on and off leash. 

When you have mastered the novice class you can move on to the open class where now the exercises will not only be obedience but will also move into retrieving and jumping over some obstacles. 

The utility class takes all this training in and adds scent discrimination as well as exercises involving silent signals. 

If obedience competition is not for you and your dog then you may be more interested in Agility competition. Agility has become the most popular dog sport in the United States and AKC now offers them at many of their local dog shows. Again just like in obedience competition there are different levels of competition in agility along with different titles as well. 

I think anybody knows or can imagine what an obedience competition would look like but maybe you're not familiar with agility. If you have an opportunity to attend an agility competition in your area you should go spend the day and watch it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and excited about what you see. 

However if you just can't wait for that next agility competition to come to your town go to Google or YouTube.com and type in agility competition so that you can go watch some videos. 

I don't think I've ever met a dog owner who didn't think agility was a blast. It's an excellent way to spend time with your dog and for each of you to get exercise. I think every larger city in America now has an agility group that you can join and that will teach you how to do the exercises and learn to compete.

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