When AKC added all these other optional classes and titles it was because the people not showing toward an OTCH said that they had no reason to keep showing. Then they added the OM and OGM which is a non competitive title just based on scores..
Seems to me they keep adding classes and titles but there doesn't seem to be a whole big influx of those people showing more. The entire intent is to bring more people into obedience and that just has not happened because obedience takes longer to train and more work.
My take though is that there's different quibblers that the AKC has been listening to?
People wanted classes to get young dogs into the ring - so BN, GN, GO... right? <- And those satisfied the people who wanted those options. ME INCLUDED. Getting Jacks into BN was an awesome way of getting him into the ring without demanding too much of him as far as stays. And I have friends who use the Graduate Novice and Graduate Open classes to proof dogs before actually showing in Open and Utility.
My honest opinion is maybe the Wild Card classes should go away as more clubs offer the above options.
When you enter shows - I think those are the non-regular class options.
The thing with preferred.... I do get that some people are just doing the preferred classes instead of the BN/GN/GO options because the classes are closer to the "Real thing" (meaning BN bears no resemblance to novice in scoring or essentials, there's only one stay in GN and they do a couple odd things as far as the jumps/retrieve, and GO there something different with the articles and signals which a lot of people have said is negative thing as far as preparing their dogs for Utility), and it works better while preparing young dogs. Or fixing odds and ends with older dogs before actually showing in Open or Utility.
I guess my only problem there is that if people are using classes for "practice" that kinda kicks down the validity of those classes and/or the bragworthiness of winning these classes. I'm sure it's not that much different from people showing in UKC as preparation for showing in AKC. When I showed Bertie in UKC a couple weeks ago, I was biting my tongue to keep from telling people that my real goal is an AKC CH and I was there for practice. I think you have a lot of people doing that and it's caused some attitude from UKC people who want their titles, titled dogs, and everything to be taken seriously.
So from that perspective, I'd hope they keep the BN/GN/GO classes in addition to the Preferred classes.... but I probably understand why some people think one or the other is superfluous for their purposes and/or how they use the classes.
The issue with stays (people who do not want their dogs in the ring with nasty dogs) - this was answered partially with the judges whittling down the amount of people in the ring by excusing non-qualifying teams, and judges excusing teams whose dogs act up outside the ring or going into the ring..... <- I'm thrilled with that, even knowing it's going to be difficult keeping my happy dogs under control while leaving the ring. Everyone is saying the same thing as well about that - I'm not the only one whose dogs get VERY ENTHUSIASTIC about going out to their toys or jackpots.
The issue with lower jumps - I think creating a preferred "route" for people who want to continue showing their dogs but can no longer ask them to jump high enough.... answers the requests of people LIKE ME who have a dog that's got a lot more potential to show off than just a CD title.
If the AKC were just lowering jumps alone for PREFERRED - I would have been happy with that. Because stays as difficult as they have been, can be fixed. We actually did have Jacks staying out of sight for a while there and of course there was a time where I never thought we'd get his stays for his CD, and that happened with a lot of hard work. So I'm not somebody who believes in taking short cuts or getting things fast at the cost of good high scores and beautiful runs in the ring. Getting OOS stays would be hard, but it's doable.
That all said since the AKC is looking to offer a PREFERRED option without stays as opposed to getting rid of stays in regular obedience, I am happy with that because it's less stress on my dog.
Regular obedience - I don't want them changing anything more than they already have. No more dumbing down the sport or giving judges more ways to whittle points off your score!
I don't want them adding a jump to novice or removing stays from open or doing whatever they probably are doing to utility.... <- I guess from my standpoint with Jacks, I'd love if they bring the jumps closer together (he doesn't always get the idea of steering way to the side to take a jump), but yeesh, there's more temptation for dogs to take jumps on their way out so I'd never truly wish for that....