Specific breed or type sports and titling

I haven't looked into Rotties, but Boxers can. They opened it up to boxers either last year or the year before.

I thought one of the retriever clubs were open to all that can do the work but they all list purebred retriever on their websites now.

For hunt tests you could always just train the dog to hunt and not worry about the test part. You get ducks or pheasant and a tired dog. Even shed hunting could have the dog work as a spaniel.

NAHRA allows all breeds apparently but I guess you have to get a special go-ahead if your dog/breed isn't on their list. At least that's how I understand it...haven't dealt with them myself...but they have several off-breed title holders.

IIRC Adrienne already checked and doesn't have it available in her area, though.

Rotts are allowed to do AKC herding, there's a long list of approved breeds for AKC herding:
http://classic.akc.org/events/herding/eligible_breeds.cfm

Your take on the coursing is mine, too. It would be nice if they could have an upper level, past the CAT (if I were in charge the CAT would stay, and anything else would come after), where the dogs could be scored like sight-hounds are now; on overall ability, follow, speed, agility, and endurance. So the dogs who showed more real aptitude for coursing could get titles that showed that. But running singly, for safety.

However, it's not that important to me. I'm happy to have the all-breed option available at all. I wanted something like that for years.

Are you saying you'd be more willing to open up field trials, or hunt tests?

I'd be willing to open up hunt tests (there's been a little of it so far, in regards to spaniels, pointers, and retrievers cross competing even though they wouldn't let Tollers into the spaniel test, which is ridiculous) more than field trials.

Goldens and Chessies are already off breeds for field trials. The handful of Malinois and Border Collies that care to compete just aren't going to be worth the administrative effort of including them. And training for field trials is so intensive, it doesn't really make sense as a secondary sport. If you're running field trials, it's because you love field trials. It's like came up in some other thread, sure you could condition a Pug for an AD, but you aren't playing to anyone's strengths. Your effort is going to be disproportionate to everyone else to get to the same place, and it probably won't be repeatable with a different person or a different dog.

That doesn't mean someone isn't going to want to do it, though. I can't imagine that a lot of people would want to compete with "off" breeds, but if they want to, why not let them?

I chose to take a Staffordshire Bull Terrier to agility World Team tryouts. Yes, if I really wanted to make the World Team, or even go to tryouts, a sheltie or a BC would be a better breed choice. Certainly much less effort. But that isn't what I wanted. I wanted to qualify for and go to tryouts with my Stafford, so I put the required effort in, and that's what I did. (and now working on getting her son ready to do the same)

Sometimes, for a certain individual, it may be worth making the extra effort to do something with a specific dog, rather than getting a dog for the task. And some individual dogs just have skills disproportionate to their breed.

Field tests, to me. Like you said, even non-Black Labrador eligible breeds are practically off breeds and the odd non-gundog able to compete at that level is going to be an outlyer. So I probably wouldn't have an issue with the oddball throwing his hat in.

Hunt tests though...I'd prefer keeping it just gun dogs for the reasons I stated in my first post. I know it probably seems backwards but to me the hunt tests are intended more as celebrations of and challenges to the natural retrieving abilities of dogs bred for that purpose and I don't know that there's really room for more groups that have minimal historical relevance and aren't able to contribute to the gundog gene pools anyway.

Interesting that Tollers can't do the Spaniel tests. Flatcoats can as of a year or two ago, though honestly FCRs have been used as upland point/flush dogs for so long that it's somewhat surprising that they haven't been able to do spaniel tests til so recently.

That's an interesting perspective! I hadn't thought of it that way.

IIRC, the Toller club had applied to be allowed in spaniel tests, but were denied on the basis of little/no historical record of them being used as upland dogs. It's been a while since I've been in the loop, though. I think there was going to be some kind of appeal.

Because, for field sports at least, the inconvenience to everyone else outweighs the one person's desire to be a special snowflake.

It isn't as simple as showing up on trial day and getting in line. Software as to be updated to account for off-breed dogs. Rulebooks have to be errata'd. Club by-laws have to be changed. Extra time and resources have to be invested in one person. Until there is a large contingent of Winnebago Outland Dogs clamoring to participate, the administrative investment would cost more than it would return.

Well, besides the fact that I can't touch anything AKC with Siri, if there *was* an option for coursing in the sighthound manner (aka: with other dogs) I'd have to agree with the people saying that they would worry about safety.

There would have to be some kind of size matching going on. I can't imagine anyone with a tiny dog wanting them to run alongside a heavy dog. Too much room for error, accidental or otherwise.

Totally OT, but I was invited to run Siri at the practice sessions of a local IG club

For sure. The way PyrSheps traditionally worked is also different from the AKC style herding too. And corgis. And Mudi. And....

Still AKC isn't going to not allow breeds in the herding group to compete in herding trials. That would be silly

Actually it's sort of silly the off breeds they do allow to compete. There's some ummm...breeds who do coursing who are obviously not sighthounds. And Boxers as herders now? Really?

I think it's fine for people to play around with whatever they and their dog seems to have an aptitude for. I have known of Belgians and GSDs who were used as actual hunting dogs. But that's a bit different than competing for a FCH with one. I don't know that I can get behind the idea that all dogs are created equally in terms of "work" or sports which test the dog's natural ability and instinct. Even in agility, I see dogs who aren't really physically suited for the sport being trialed because of their owner's goal. I knew what I have been told was the first Mastiff to earn excellent titles in agility (preferred I think). That dog didn't love agility and it was obvious it was physically harder for him than other dogs. He got the titles because he was willing and because his owner wanted to have an agility Mastiff. I don't think agility should exclude breeds but it seems obvious that some breeds aren't really suited for it. Maybe there needs to be a Giant Agility organization started up for such dogs, like the Teacup was started for little dogs. Larger, lower obstacles, low jump heights, more room between obstacles, etc. I do think the real big dogs could enjoy it so much more if they actual fit on the equipment and could jump low.

But I guess my point is...why do all breeds have to be able to do all the same stuff anyway? Isn't part of the cool thing about purebred dogs is that they are specialized for certain tasks? It happens that coursing is fun for many breeds because many jobs require high prey drive and good athletic ability. But that doesn't mean just because non-sighthounds enjoy it they need to compete for FCHs against sighthounds.

They're not in the herding group, they're still in the working group, but they are allowed to herd.

Ohhhh man, did I ever get to hear a heated debate about THAT! A friend of mine has very nice Boxers, and wanted to get into herding. An aquaintance of ours (who has whippets and does lure coursing, but also has herding breeds and sheep) got really nasty about Boxers being allowed to herd. She ranted and raved about how she'd never let Boxers on her stock, because they'd "tear up her poor sheep" .... yadda yadda yadda.

Luckily we have a very talented herding trainer that is willing to work with off-breeds. He's been pestering me to bring Kaylee out and see what she thinks of it all.

I'm curious about why boxers in particular are being allowed for herding trials? I don't have anything against it, I'm just wondering if there's some particular reasoning for them?

My only logical thought is maybe they often show herding instinct? Gavroche has prey drive out the ass, but I don't think he'd actually herd. I've seen videos of boxers herding and heard that many of them are able to do it, but I haven't researched where this came from or anything like that.

I may be wrong, but weren't Boxers (historically) occasionally used for herding? I'll have to do more research, but I don't see the AKC allowing a breed to herd unless there was some sort of historical evidence that it was one of the breed's purposes.

This is the only reason I could think of for them being allowed to herd.
For example, Airedales are able to compete in field trials, because they used to be used for that purpose. Not their main usage, but they were on occasion.

I was wondering if that was why, but I don't know enough about them.

One of the reasons I'd like to see "other breeds" allowed to participate in these activities is so that their owners can get chances to try it out if they choose. I'd like to try herding with Tess. I think she would herd. (I tend to think that Pirate wouldn't, so I'm not too interested in trying it out with him) I don't really care if she can title at it, I'd just be interested in trying the sport, but the odds of finding anyone who will let me try my Stafford on their sheep seems really low. And of course, I'd want the sheep to be safe, so I wouldn't want to try it without an experienced person involved, so I'm not just going to go to my friend's house and say "hey, let's see if my dog will herd your sheep!"

But again, not super duper important to me, just something I'd like.