183 — Solving the Mysteries of AKC Points and Divisions | Pure Dog Talk

Solving the Mysteries of AKC Points and Divisions
AKC releases a new point schedule every year in May to determine how many entries it takes to earn championship points in each breed. Intermittently, the “divisions” that address alignment of regions in which certain point schedules apply are adjusted as well. On May 16 this year, the new points schedule and a division realignment go into effect.
Alan Slay, AKC Director of Event Programs, is here to walk us through the process involved in determining what “makes a major” in every single breed and sex and region of the country each year.
Computers to the Rescue
Fortunately, computers do most of the hard work, Slay said. But the basic formula has remained the same since at least 1971, the oldest documentation he could find.
“So a software program goes and looks at each division, breed and sex,” Slay said. “… 15 Divisions, each breed, each of the sexes, you do that math, that’s a lot of looking. (It) individually looks at the shows that had competitors and then it sorts them and then uses those guidelines set by the board of directors to determine what the number of competitors should be required for each of those one, two, three, four and five points.”
The AKC Board of Directors’ guidelines, according to Slay, are that 95 percent of shows should have one point available, 18 percent of shows should have at least a three-point major on offer and 2 percent of shows should have a five-point major in each division, breed and sex.
Nationals NOT Included in Calculations
Slay noted that Parent Club National Specialties are NOT included in these calculations. He added that more recently ANY show within three days and 50 miles of a National Specialty also is not included in these averages.
“Myself and others working on this saw some disparity of almost a penalty for allowing a National Specialty to come into your division the way the formulation used to work,” Slay said. “About four years ago, we went to the Board of Directors and said this is just not fair. For instance, you have a national specialty occurring on a Thursday, maybe Wednesday and Thursday. And you’d have a cluster over the weekend at the same site on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Well that Friday, Saturday, Sunday for that breed would have an inflated number of competitors compared to what it would normally have. And those all-breed or other specialties were counting toward the point schedule.”
New Divisions Bring Fairness to Exhibitors
Slay and his team also looked at fairness and equal distribution of shows when they created the first realignment of divisions in six years.
“(T)his is an odd looking division we created with Arizona and Colorado,” Slay said. “ … it would be nice to make a little square there (and) make a division out of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. But that is not fair to Utah and New Mexico.
“Utah and New Mexico … the people who live in those states would be greatly affected by the competitors in Arizona and Colorado. … it’s the fairest thing we could do because … Utah and New Mexico really belong in that division with Nebraska, New Mexico and Nevada and South Dakota. They had the similar size shows.”
I hope everyone takes a minute to listen to this excellent discussion with Mr. Slay and is able to gain a greater understanding of how our points and divisions are created. There’s no voodoo magic here!
And remember to stick around for Allison Foley’s Tip of the Week from the Leading Edge Dog Show Academy. Today Allison is talking about getting dogs past those things they hate, including toe nail trimming.
To reach Alan Slay on email, go to [email protected] … To access this information on an interactive PDF, click here