The State of Obedience

Recently, Willard Bailey, in his blog “Willard Unleashed” (http://www.willardunleashed.blogspot.com) had a series of posts concerning the dropoff in obedience entries. He inspired me to write a series of my own posts about changes that might increase interest in obedience.

I’m still a Novice at obedience. I put my first CD on a standard poodle in 1993. His career ended there because he could not jump the 28” required at the time. My next poodle could jump so well, I got drawn into agility, which was so much more fun, I didn’t seriously consider obedience again until my third poodle, Alder. I worked at agility with him until he was 3 years old, when it had become clear that, yes, he could jump, but not well enough for agility. I turned back to obedience. Since then, I have put CDs on Alder and two other dogs, for a total of 4 CDs. Alder has 2 Open legs. He struggles with the jumps in obedience. I am hoping he has enough jump left in him to get that last Open leg, and then he will most likely become strictly a Rally dog.

I’ve enjoyed obedience more this second time around, but I’ll admit that if I had a jumping fool of a dog, I’d probably be bumbling around in agility with nary a thought of obedience. I’ve recently started serious hunt training with my young Golden. Hunt training is tremendous fun for both dog and handler. For sporting dog owners, it represents yet another temptation away from obedience.

There is plenty of (justifiable) angst about the low Novice A entry, but I think there needs to be at least as much attention paid to the dismal retention of Novice competitors beyond the CD. Obedience has problems both with attracting newcomers and with retention of competitors. Consider these numbers:

· Obedience retention: Of dogs that finished a CD, about 34% completed a CDX. Of dogs that finish a CDX, about 44% finish a UD. Hence, of the dogs that finish a CD, about 15% will eventually get a UD.

· Agility retention: Of dogs that finish a Novice Agility (NA) title, about 75% go on to finish an Open Agility (OA title). Of OA dogs, about 75% go on to complete an Excellent Agility (AX) title. Hence, of the dogs that complete an NA, over half eventually get an AX.

It may surprise some people to know that the number of novice obedience and novice agility titles awarded each year are similar (4,000 to 6,000/year) (It’s difficult to compare the exact number of novice agility titles because there are novice titles for jumpers, standard, preferred jumpers, and preferred standard and no way to tell how many of those titles go to overlapping dogs.) Not only are agility competitors more likely to stay with agility through open and excellent, they often continue to stay for multiple MXs, MXJs, and MACHs, then start over and get the same titles at preferred heights.

Agility training requires far more space and far more expensive equipment than obedience. Getting all those titles represents a huge expense in entry fees. Agility competitors can usually sign up for 3 events/day (jumpers, standard, and FAST/T2B), and they often do. Handlers and dogs must generally be in better physical shape for agility (although good distance training can compensate for handler handicaps).

And yet, despite the agility costs, space requirements, equipment, and demanding physical condition of handlers and dogs, agility continues to draw dog people that would be much better suited for obedience.

Why is obedience less attractive to newcomers? Why do people that venture into obedience drift away into other activities, often never to return?

To be continued…