Purpose Bred Breed Evaluation – Evaluation Of Dogs For Those Not Competing At Show

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346 – November/December, 2025

By Caroline Coile

Classes just for altered dogs? Limited Registration dogs allowed to compete in conformation? A new conformation title based on a passing score rather than competition? AKC’s recent Board meetings have been filled with what some would call innovative ideas–and others would call heresy.

Altered Dog Classes?

Let’s start with the easy one: “The Board discussed a request from the Delegate Dog Show Rules Committee (DSRC) to adopt a clarification concerning a club’s option to offer competitive altered classes at independent specialties or all-breed dog shows without competition beyond Best of Breed.”

Apparently, some specialty clubs wanted to offer altered classes for dogs of any age at independent specialties. Current rules allow for them to be entered at such shows in Veteran classes or other single-entry, non-regular classes alongside intact entrants, providing these classes are offered before Best of Breed competition. The Dog Show Rules Committee disagreed. In response, the Board agreed with the Rules Committee that Chapter 11, Section 8 of the Rules Applying to Dog Shows was not intended to allow for the offering of an altered class that competes for Best of Breed. The following has now been added for clarification:

“No class may be given for which castration or spaying is a condition of class.”

It’s true that many exhibitors have clamored for a separate altered class, as is offered by UKC and some other dog show organizations, but the AKC has always maintained the purpose of conformation shows is to evaluate breeding stock. It’s also true that one way to evaluate breeding stock is to evaluate what they have produced, whether entire or altered, but that may better be the province of stud dog and brood bitch classes–assuming that the club’s rules allow for altered dogs to be entered as progeny.

Limited Registration Dogs in Conformation?

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346 – November/December, 2025

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