A good way of measuring how well your training and dog handling skills are progressing is to enter your dog into obedience trial events. Obedience trials are sponsored on a regular basis by dog food manufacturers, other canine product providers, dog breed associations and a host of other companies and organizations. They are held locally, nationally and sometimes internationally; normally there is no restriction as to the type of dog that is entered. The dog doesn't have to be a registered pedigree but if your dog is, he will not be excluded. The list of entrants will be split into categories of size, weight, breed or crossbreed to maintain a fair balance of dogs competing against each other in the trials.

Youngsters and children are also allowed to enter their dogs and sometimes junior handling trainers are made available to them. The cost of entry is very small, particularly if the trials are held locally. The trials are usually broken down into the following groups:-

Basic level

Trial events may vary in different countries but usually in a basic level obedience trial you will need to be able to demonstrate that your dog is able to walk with or without a leash accompanied by his dog handler, respond to the ?come?, ?sit? and ?down? commands, walk in different directions without touching or showing attention to his handler together with being able to stand still when the judge performs an examination of him. Your dog will also need to demonstrate that he is able to sit and stay for whatever time is set by the organizer of the trials.

Open

The Open level group is more difficult because the dog has to demonstrate that he is capable of working off the leash with the handler. Some of the time, the dogs in this group will be required to work together and at others they will work individually. Among the skills required to excel in the Open level are the ability to retrieve and drop an item on command, heel in a figure of eight and jump over a wide gap or object of a certain height together with positive reactions to the ?sit? and ?down? commands. In addition your dog will be required to sit or stay down for 3 to 5 minutes without his handler being present.

Utility

The Utility is the most difficult of any obedience trial class. Together with being able to prove all of the skills in the Basic and Open levels, your dog will have to retrieve, from a pile of objects, only those objects which have been touched by his handler. Having retrieved an object your dog will then return the object to the handler on command. His final test will be to follow hand signals with no voice commands to complete a high and broad jump.

Dogs are awarded points by the judges of obedience trials. At the beginning of the trials the dog has the maximum points available, usually 200. For each mistake the dog makes his points will decrease. The champion is the dog which, in the judge's opinion, made the least mistakes.