At their June 1999 meeting the Board of Directors in conjunction with the Performance Events staff and the 1999 Herding Advisory Committee approved the following award program for AKC Herding Tests and Trials effective January 1, 2000

A. COURSE SPECIFIC TITLES: All courses offered at AKC Herding Trials test a different skill set of the dog and handler. This proposed change would allow for separate titles for each course; currently there are three (3) courses: A, B & C.

B. STOCK SPECIFIC TITLES: This proposed change would allow for separate titles on different types of stock at the various trial levels. Each of the three varieties of livestock present very different challenges and skills required of the dog and handler. Stock
specific titles will be designated by lower case letters after the trial title.

Effective January 1, 2000, any dog that has successfully completed a leg (s) in an AKC Herding Test or Trial would be eligible to complete the requirements for the title in progress; once the requirements necessary had been successfully completed the title would be awarded recognizing the course type and livestock type for which the title was completed. E.g. HIAs. (Herding Intermediate Course A sheep)

Note: if two legs were required to complete the title after January 1, 2000 it would be necessary for both legs/qualifying scores to be on the same type of course and livestock. E.g., Course A sheep.

This would allow any dog participating in AKC Herding Tests and Trials to continue to compete with no loss of awards, legs towards titles etc.

Once a title had been completed the dog would be eligible to continue to complete in any additional type of course with any additional type of livestock the owner(s) of the dog may desire.

Allowing the owner continued participation in AKC Herding events with the benefit of achieving additional titles.

Any dog that has been recorded as being awarded an AKC Herding title would remain the same.  No changes/ deletions to the dog's record would be made. Once again, these dogs would be eligible to continue to complete for any additional title(s) available.

Additionally, there will be no loss of accumulated points towards a Herding Championship.

Any questions regarding this issue should be forwarded to the Performance Events department at herding@akc.org