[TrinaJ]

Originally Posted by fbkeays

Dog show 101. This is for AKC, other venues may be different. There are two different kinds of show dogs- class dogs and specials. Class dogs (or bitches- being sexist again) are dogs that do not have their championship. The classes are split by sex so dogs do not compete in the same class as bitches (until later, so hold on). Specials are dogs that already have their championship and their sole purpose for being there is to go BOB in hopes of doing well in group and therefore, BIS.
The classes are: 6-9 month puppy, 9-12 month puppy, 12-18 months (youth), Novice (which may be going away and hardly anyone ever enters) American Bred (for dogs 6 months and older who were born in the USA and do not have a championship) and Open(any dog over 6 months of age and was born anywhere).
The winner of each class(still divided by sex) compete against each other for winners dog(or bitch). The winner's dog or bitch now has points towards their championship. Depending on the number of class dogs entered in their sex, the dog can earn anywhere from 0-5 points. Points worth 3-5 points are called majors. A dog needs 15 points under at least 3 judges with at least 2 wins being majors and they have to be under different judges.
Class dogs are judged first, followed by class bitches. The next class is called Best of Breed. The winner's dog and winner's bitch go into that class with all of the specials of both sexes to compete for BOB, Best opposite sex (BOS) and Best of Winners (BOW).
Going BOW can be a very good thing. If one of the sexes has a larger entry then the other and has more points, if the other sex goes BOW, then they get that same number of points. Say there are 2 points in dogs and 3(major) in bitches and the dog (which again has the bias) goes BOW, that dog now has a major instead of just two points. The bitch keeps her major. Again males go BOW about 80% of the time in my unscientific observation. My own Fizbin got two of his 3 majors by going BOW as there was not enough males, but plenty of bitches for a major.
It is possible for a class dog/bitch to go BOB, but not often if there are specials entered. So now you know how a class dog/bitch earns points for their championship. Now the reason why all of those specials enter is to go BOB and hopefully keep on winning. At each level that they win, they have defeated x number of dogs. Say that there were a total of 21 rottweilers entered and a dog goes BOB. They have defeated 20 dogs. They go onto group and take a group 1. Say there were 500 working dogs entered. Now the dogs defeated is 499. Say that same rottweiler then wins BIS and their were 2201 dogs entered in the show, now they have defeated 2200 dogs.
Dogs are ranked by how many dogs that they have defeated. So when you hear about a Top 10 dog, they have won (BOB, or group, or BIS) enough in enough shows to be ranked in the top 10.
Clear as mud?

WOW that's very informative, thank you so much. I didn't realise how rare it was for a bitch to win BIB.