The following is an excerpt from the January 2017 AC Board minutes.

COMPANION AND PERFORMANCE Doug Ljungren, Vice President Sports and Events, Pamela Manaton, Director of Obedience, Rally and Tracking, Carrie DeYoung, Director of Agility, and Mary Burch, Director of CGC, participated in this portion of the meeting by teleconference.

Rally Program Enhancements

The Board reviewed a Staff recommendation to create two additional Rally classes – the Intermediate class and the Master class. In terms of difficulty, the Intermediate class is between the current Novice and Advanced classes. The Master class will be more difficult than the Excellent class. There will be titles associated with these new classes. In addition, a Rally Championship prefix title (RACH) is recommended for dogs that achieve a given number of triple Qs (qualify in the Advanced, Excellent and Master class at the same trial) plus earn a given number of points from the Master class. If approved, clubs may start to apply for events with these new classes on August1, 2017 for events held on or after December 1, 2017. This will be discussed further at the February meeting.