What’s Happening with AD and ADXA Classes?

Our new regs come into force next month, and I’ve had a few people ask me questions about what the changes to AD and ADXA mean for them. I’ve had my head under a rock, mostly because it doesn’t really affect me – I have an older dog who is more or less retired, and a young dog who is yet to achieve his first clear round.

As an instructor I feel like I should know the answer so that I can give newer competitors a better answer than “go and look at the regs”, so here we are – the most common AD and ADX questions answered.

What’s this all about?

The last standalone AD and ADXA classes have now been run. Starting from next year, you’ll have an opportunity to earn AD and ADXA clear rounds at every champ agility show – but these will be on regular courses that you can also win ribbons in.

At each show the club will nominate one Novice class to be the AD course, and one Intermediate class to be the ADXA class. You don’t need to do anything special for your clear rounds in these classes to count towards titles – just enter them like you would any other class.

Side note: For some time now the class that you earn ADX Advanced titles (Bronze/Silver/Gold) in has officially been the “ADX” class in the regs. I am using ADXA to refer to this class throughout this Q&A, because it is easy to get confused between ADX the title (which you earn by getting clear rounds in the AD class) and ADX the class (which is not the class you earn your ADX title in).

Will There Be A Seesaw In Novice Now?

No. That means that dogs can get their AD title without ever learning the seesaw.

Fun fact: my first ever clear round was on a Novice course in 1997. The course included a seesaw, because back then we did have the seesaw in Novice.

I heard all Senior dogs will automatically get their ADXG

They’ll automatically get their ADX – not their ADXG.

And Novice/Intermediate dogs will automatically get their AD.

How many clear rounds do I need to get AD now?

There’s no change to the number of clear rounds required to get any of the titles – just to which classes you can earn them in. It’s still two to get AD, four in total to get ADX, two to get ADXB, four in total to get ADXS, six in total to get ADXG.

You can now also get the AD title by graduating out of Starters, and the ADX title by graduating out of Novice. Yes, that means your dog can get an AD title without ever setting foot on a piece of contact equipment.

Will this affect graduation to Senior for dogs with two Novice wins?

Yes.

The usual route to win out of Novice is to get three wins. It’s not well-known to newer handlers that if you have two wins and your ADX title, you also graduate (and this is not optional).

There has been no change to that clause of regulation 14.2.2, so this rule is still in effect. And it means that a dog with two wins and a total of four clear rounds in the AD-nominated Novice classes will graduate to Senior. This graduation is not optional.

We will potentially see dogs moving up to Senior more quickly as a result. If you happen to get both your Novice wins on AD-nominated courses, you only need two more such clear rounds and it’s bye-bye to Novice forever.

What if I get my AD but I want to stay in Starters?

Graduation from Starters to Novice when you get your AD title will be optional.

What other effects are there on graduation?

Handlers whose dogs get their ADX title (but don’t have two wins in Novice/Intermediate) can choose to go up to Senior. This means a dog that has gone clear four times in its lifetime (each time on an AD-nominated Novice class) could now become an Intermediate/Senior dog without ever needing to win.

Here’s another one that I almost didn’t notice: handlers that get 25 clear rounds in Starters and Novice classes will optionally be allowed to graduate to Novice/Intermediate. It’s a bit fuzzy from the wording (although it’s an unlikely scenario), but my interpretation is that if you get 25 clear rounds in Starters classes alone without ever going clear in Novice, you would get your AD title when you choose to graduate up to Novice/Intermediate level.

What do you think about the changes?

Now we’re getting political!

I’m glad to see the back end of AD and ADXA classes. From a club’s perspective they were a pain up the bum to set up and to fit into a busy show weekend. From a handler’s perspective it felt a bit like a raffle at times. You could have a dog that goes clear 2 or 3 times every weekend and still take a looong time to get your titles. My dear departed Toad won 15 Challenge Certificates in Senior between getting his second and third ADXA clear rounds! It was also frustrating when you ran the same course several times in a row (unless you liked that course) or when there was only one AD class scheduled for the next three months and you had to work that weekend.

I have been on the Agility Committee and I know it’s very hard to find a solution that pleases everyone. As I said, I think getting rid of AD classes is progress, but I would like to see our graduation and titling criteria simplified. Unfortunately that’s not what other people voted for so here we are.

It will be interesting to see how these changes affect class numbers at each level, and potentially the number of challenges given out. With the optional graduation out of Novice after getting the ADX title, and some people likely graduating through the ADX + two wins rule when they would rather not, our sport could become more top-heavy. This is “normal” in many other countries (including Australia and the US) but those countries don’t have a win-out culture, and have Champion titles that are focused more on consistency than on winning.

The new regs also lower the limit for offering a third-place Challenge to 50 entries. If we do see the Senior class grow, we will potentially see quite a few more Challenges given out. The AG CH title only requires one first place Challenge, so that could flow into more dogs achieving this title. The requirement for ten wins for AG GR CH means that this title will remain very difficult to achieve.

Whether we want to make it easier to achieve AG CH status is something I’m on the fence about. I’ve seen classes with 30 dogs where eight dogs finished within a second of each other, and arguably they all deserved a Challenge. On the other hand I’ve seen much larger classes where there weren’t a lot of particularly inspiring runs. Hopefully the 50-entry limit is high enough that most dogs taking home third place Challenges did really awesome runs to earn them.