These images often include snooty handlers with high strung, mentally lacking, pure bred dogs. Others remember the images Hollywood has painted in movies. These movies portrayed dogs competing in conformation and obedience. There will always be conformation classes where dogs are judged by the accepted AKC standards of form and temperament. These classes will have a single judge standing in the ring and he will judge the each dog against others of the same breed.
Obedience is when each dog is judged against a scorecard.
Each level of class will have preset commands such as sit, down, stay, come and heal which a dog must obey quickly. These trials are open to retrievers, spaniels, Beagles, Basset Hounds, pointing breeds and Dachshunds. This is open to sight hounds such as Greyhounds, Afghans, Whippets, Borzoi, Irish Wolfhounds, Pharaoh Hounds, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Scottish Deerhounds and Salukis. They are termed sight hounds because they follow by sight not scent. In the lure coursing the dogs must able to pass AKC breed standards and over one year of age.