About Obedience

Obedience is a sport demonstrating the usefulness of a dog as a companion to humankind. The dog and handler teams are judged on how closely they match the judge's mental picture of a theoretically perfect performance as they execute a series of specified exercises. Each level of obedience (novice, open, and utility) requires mastering a specific skill set with increasing levels of difficulty. The novice class demonstrated good canine companion skills such as heeling, coming when called, standing for an exam, and staying. The open class is more challenging as more exercises are done off leash and retrieving and jumping challenges are added. The utility class is the most challenging and adds in scent discrimination, directed retrieves, jumping and silent signals.

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