A Short History of AKC Agility and the ABTC Ranking Systems

The first AKC agility trial was held on August 11, 1994 in conjunction with the Houston KC AstroWorld Series of Dog Shows.  Dogs were allowed to “grandfather in” to the higher class levels if they had equivalent titles from other agility organizations until March 1, 1996. 

From 1994 through 1997, only the Standard class was offered.  It was split into three levels – Novice A and B, Open, and Excellent.  On February 1, 1998, the Jumpers with Weaves (JWW) class became a recognized class.  Dogs were allowed to enter JWW at their current level in the Standard class.  When JWW became official, no wrong courses were allowed at any level.  Excellent A JWW could have time faults only, but Excellent B required a score of 100 to qualify.

The MACH titles came effective as of February 1, 1999, and at that time, the Excellent Standard class was split into A and B divisions.  I believe up until 1999, the AKC only published the scores – they didn’t publish the dogs’ times, so it was sometimes difficult to determine actual rankings within the class other than the placements.

In the beginning, a score of 85 was required to qualify in all classes.  In Excellent, no refusals or run outs were permitted, but you could have two wrong courses (5 faults).  Table faults were only 2 points off for each occurrence, and time faults were 3 seconds for each full second over time.

In 1999, when the Excellent Standard class was split into A and B, the qualification requirements changed.  Excellent B was only allowed time faults, and the wrong courses were reduced to one allowed in Excellent A.  You could still qualify with a score of 85 in either class, but only scores of 100 in Excellent B counted towards MACH points or Double-Q’s. 

Then in 2003, the rules were changed again so that a qualifying score in Excellent B required a perfect score of 100, and Excellent A was allowed time faults only.  At that time, the table fault was increased to 5 pts.

As the sport of agility has matured and changes to the AKC regulations have occurred, it has been necessary to change the method used for the ranking system from time to time, in order to reflect the current state of competition.  In the beginning, a modified Delaney-type system (from obedience rankings) was used, which ranked the dogs based on the number of dogs defeated.  However, it was felt that this system did not adequately compare dogs competing in different regions of the country, where class entries could vary greatly.  It also favored Novice dogs, where the class levels were bigger, since most dogs were just getting started in agility.  Beginning with 1996 and up through 6/30/01, only Open and Excellent scores were included in the rankings.  From July 2001 through 2005, only Excellent A and B scores were included in the rankings.  Beginning with 2006, only Excellent B classes will be included.

From 1997 through 2002, the ranking method was changed to use a more Shuman-like system, with points awarded on a sliding scale relative to the score.  Only Standard class scores were used for the Top Ten Rankings for those years.  With the new scoring rules coming into effect for 2003, some other method was needed to differentiate dogs with the same number of qualifying scores.  Thus, the qualifying score was used as the basis for points, with additional points added for each full second under the Standard Course Time (SCT).  Along with this change, JWW classes were also included in the rankings, and the total points from both classes were used to determine the rankings.

As training and handling methods have improved and dogs’ times have gotten faster, it was felt that the speed component of agility competition needed to be reflected more (given more weight) in the rankings.  After much review, it was decided for 2006 to reduce the qualifying points from 100 to 10, while keeping the speed points for seconds under SCT.  Based on the average of the top 30 dogs in 2005, this should give an equal weight to speed and consistency for the average Belgian Tervuren (See attached chart below).  The ABTC Agility Committee feels that this system will recognize and reward those dogs that are both accurate and fast, and that can prove they can consistently demonstrate both those elements of excellence in agility performance.  This method will also allow equal comparison between dogs competing in different parts of the country, without giving preference to placements or dogs defeated, which can both vary by geographic region.                       

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