This is the actual 2025 Crufts Obedience Champion and Reserve Champion, performing live.
Mary Ray handling Obedience Champion “LC,” an 11-year-old Border Collie, and Rachel Millington handling Reserve Champion “Zoe,” running through heelwork, a send-away, a retrieve, distance control, and scent discrimination, narrated live by the judging team. Neither breed nor size limits who competes. The same display names Dachshunds, Bernese Mountain Dogs, and Staffordshire Bull Terriers as regular competitors at this level too.
Crufts itself doesn’t write the rules it judges by. Its obedience classes run on the Kennel Club’s own Obedience Show Regulations, now the Royal Kennel Club after a 2025 rebrand, the same rulebook used at every licensed obedience show throughout the year, not a bespoke Crufts-only ruleset. What Crufts does have is something the rest of the calendar doesn’t: the Kennel Club Obedience Championship-Dog and Obedience Championship-Bitch, contested annually at the show itself. The Kennel Club’s own system is one obedience system among several worldwide, alongside AKC’s Novice, Open, and Utility system and FCI’s Class 1/2/3 system.
Crufts Runs on Kennel Club Rules
The regulations are direct about the relationship: “The Kennel Club will offer at Crufts Dog Show each year the Kennel Club Obedience Championship-Dog and the Kennel Club Obedience Championship-Bitch. A dog awarded one or more Obedience Certificates during the calendar year preceding Crufts Dog Show shall be entitled to compete. The tests for the championships shall be those required for Class C in these Regulations.”
In practice, that means a dog needs to have already won at least one Obedience Certificate in the preceding year just to qualify for Crufts’ obedience ring. Crufts obedience is an entry-gated invitational within an already-elite tier, not an open competition anyone can walk into on the day.
The Class Ladder
The Kennel Club runs a far longer progression than AKC’s three core classes or FCI’s three classes: Introductory, Pre-Beginners, Beginners, Novice, Class A, Class B, Class C, and Championship Class C, plus a separate Multi-Choice class open to every level.
How Progression Works
Progression is the handler’s choice, class by class. A first-place win at a licensed show moves a dog up, or a handler can accumulate points instead under the “Obedience Excellent” scheme (10 points for a first, 4 for a second, 2 for a third, 1 for a fourth), needing 10 to 30 points depending on the class being left. There’s no time limit, and once a dog progresses by either method it can’t return to the class it came from. Neither AKC nor FCI offers this kind of dual track. AKC requires three qualifying legs before a dog can move up. FCI requires one qualifying “Excellent” score.
Every class shares one floor: dogs must be six calendar months old or older to compete at any Kennel Club licensed obedience show.
Voirrey Horne, an obedience competitor who’s shown at every level up to Crufts, walks through what climbing that ladder actually looks like, starting with a requirement that catches a lot of first-time owners off guard: any dog, crossbred or pedigree, can compete, but it has to be registered on the Kennel Club’s Activity Register or Breed Register first.
Introductory Through Novice
These four classes share a shape: reward-permitted, outside the Championship track, each adding one more skill than the last.
- Introductory (30 points): Engagement, Heelwork Set Up plus Heel on Lead, and a three-part Recall. The only class where handlers can carry and use food or toy rewards inside the competitive ring itself.
- Pre-Beginners (45 points): Heel on Lead, Heel Free, Recall. Still reward-permitted.
- Beginners (70 points): the same three exercises, plus a Retrieve of any article.
- Novice (70 points): the same four-exercise shape as Beginners, scored more strictly, with the retrieve narrowed to a dumbbell specifically.
There’s also a genuinely separate on-ramp outside this ladder: the Good Citizen Dog Scheme Special Pre-Beginner Obedience Stakes, open to any dog that’s passed the Good Citizen Bronze award. Regional heats run throughout the year, feeding a final held at Crufts itself. The 2025 display closed by bringing in that year’s Stakes finalist, a dog “not even two yet,” the clearest possible answer to how an absolute beginner actually gets started.
Recall shows up at every tier of this ladder. It starts as its own three-part test in Introductory, then folds into the combined Send Away, Drop, and Recall exercise from Class B onward. It’s the same functional skill PetCoach’s own recall guide covers, tested here to an increasingly demanding standard as the classes climb.
Class A
100 points. This is the first class to introduce scent work, earlier in the Kennel Club’s ladder than FCI’s Class 2 or AKC’s Utility.
- Heel Free
- Recall
- Retrieve: a dumbbell, the handler’s own
- Scent Discrimination: the handler’s own scent, no decoy cloths
Class B
150 points.
- Heelwork: now tested at normal, fast, and slow pace, each change starting from a halt
- Send Away, Drop, and Recall: introduced at this class
- Retrieve: moves to any article the judge provides
- Scent Discrimination: adds one decoy cloth
Class C
230 points, also called Open Class C.
- Heelwork: now includes stand, sit, and down while walking at normal pace, on top of the fast/slow pace test
- Send Away, Drop, and Recall: continues
- Retrieve: continues
- Distant Control: introduced here, six sit, stand, and down instructions cued from a distance
- Scent Discrimination: switches to the judge’s own scent, unfamiliar to the dog, with at least one decoy
That handler-scent-to-judge-scent switch between Class A and Class C isn’t just in the regulations. The 2025 display’s own judge confirms it live, almost word for word: “In the lower classes this starts in Class A, with scent, and they have to find the handler scent, which is obviously a very familiar scent for the dogs. It’s only in Class C where they have to find an unfamiliar scent.”
Distance work only enters at Class C, the top non-Championship tier, a direct contrast with FCI, which asks for its own distance-control exercise as early as Class 1.
Distance control and scent discrimination are easier to picture in motion than in a bullet list. This compilation of Crufts Obedience Champion displays shows both up close: a handler cueing position changes from several paces away without moving closer, and a dog working entirely off its nose to pick the one cloth carrying the judge’s scent out of a full pattern of decoys. Mary Ray and Lyric, the same pair from the display at the top of this article, appear again here running distance control.
Championship Class C
Championship Class C runs the identical six-exercise, 230-point test as Open Class C: Heelwork, Send Away/Drop/Recall, Retrieve, Distant Control, and Scent Discrimination. “Championship” describes the show tier and the titling eligibility, not a harder exercise list layered on top, a genuinely different model from FCI, where Class 3 is both the top domestic class and a real step up in difficulty from Class 2.
The heelwork test itself mirrors PetCoach’s own front-fixed and rear-fixed position work, just held to a far tighter standard: no verbal cue, no extra command, and a dog that’s expected to read the handler’s movement alone through every pace change and turn. The same display shows exactly this, Mary and LC moving through normal, slow, and fast pace with zero verbal cues given once the round starts.
Once a dog becomes an Obedience Champion, it’s restricted to Class C only, barred from every lower class and from limited or match shows. This level of precision has little to do with what a pet dog needs for daily life. That’s what functional obedience is for.
How Command Rules Differ From FCI
The two systems make genuinely different calls on what to do when a dog needs telling twice.
FCI grades an extra command instead of failing it outright, costing points on a defined scale rather than ending the run:
- Class 1: a second command drops one grade, a third fails the exercise
- Class 2 and 3: a second command drops two grades
- Recall, every class, no exceptions: a second recall always costs two grades
FCI is effectively grading how much help a dog needed, not just whether it eventually got there.
The Kennel Club sets a harder ceiling instead of a sliding scale:
- Pre-Beginners through Novice: as many commands and signals as needed, no penalty
- Class A: one command and one signal together, given simultaneously
- Class B and Championship Class C: exactly one command or signal per exercise, full stop, with no published point-cost path for a second attempt the way FCI has
This matches exactly what the 2025 display shows: once the round starts, no extra command, no repeated cue, nothing beyond the single instruction each exercise allows. One rule holds identically in both systems, worth naming since it’s easy to assume otherwise: neither counts using the dog’s name alongside the actual command as an extra cue, as long as the two are given together rather than as two separate instructions.
How Heeling Style Is Judged
Animated, high-head, almost prancing heelwork shows up across competitive obedience circles, and it’s easy to assume Crufts and FCI simply expect different amounts of it. Neither rulebook actually asks for it.
FCI’s own text is explicit: “The movement of the dog (and handler) in heelwork must be natural. Unnatural positions of the dog and exaggerations are big mistakes… These can even fail the exercise.”
The Kennel Club’s own regulations make the same call in softer language: “In all exercises the dog will work in a happy and natural manner whilst maintaining its natural topline. Its head position should in no way compromise its topline or impair the natural movement of the dog.”
Both ask for natural movement, not exaggerated movement. The bouncier, more animated heeling style some handlers train, often borrowed from IGP/Schutzhund presentation and popularized on social media more than by any rulebook, isn’t a scored requirement under FCI or the Kennel Club. If anything, FCI treats real exaggeration as a fault serious enough to fail the exercise outright.
Handling Style: Arm Position
One visible style difference holds up across competitors, though neither regulation actually writes it down. Crufts handlers typically keep the handling arm bent, hand resting near the hip. FCI handlers typically keep the arm loose at the side, swinging with the stride. This is a competition convention, visible across footage rather than spelled out in either rulebook.
PetCoach trains toward the FCI convention, hand at the side, since our own training background leans FCI. The hand position a dog is trained to work off becomes part of its own cue picture.
Training toward a hand at the hip and training toward a hand at the side start from the same shaping principles, but the lure position and the fade sequence end up different, so which target a handler is training toward needs deciding early, before the dog already has a habit built around the other one.
How Titling Works
Three separate awards exist, worth keeping distinct.
Obedience Certificate (Dog or Bitch) goes to the Class C winner of each sex at a Championship show, provided the dog loses no more than 15 of the available 230 points. It’s placement-based, not just a qualifying score.
Obedience Champion (Ob Ch) requires three Obedience Certificates under three different judges, or an outright win of a Kennel Club Obedience Championship, meaning winning at Crufts itself. The display’s own commentary uses the handler-community shorthand for this directly: the 2025 champion “won four tickets this year to earn her place at Crufts,” “tickets” being the informal term for Obedience Certificates.
Obedience Warrant (OW) is a separate, less well-known award: 100 total progression points accumulated across Novice, Class A, Class B, and Open Class C, a recognition of career consistency rather than a top-placement title. Neither AKC nor FCI names an equivalent award this way.
How Crufts Differs From AKC and FCI
- Number of tiers: the Kennel Club runs seven core classes before Championship Class C. AKC runs three. FCI runs three.
- Progression: the Kennel Club allows wins or accumulated points, handler’s choice, class by class. AKC requires three qualifying legs. FCI requires one qualifying “Excellent” grade.
- Where scent work first appears: Class A under the Kennel Club, the fifth of seven tiers. Class 2 under FCI, its middle tier. Utility under AKC, its top tier. Three different design choices, not a strict harder-to-easier ranking.
- Titling model: the Kennel Club’s Obedience Certificate is placement-based, closer in spirit to FCI’s placement-based FCI-CACIOB than to AKC’s qualifying-score-only UD.
- The flagship event: Crufts’ Obedience Championship is a single-country, individual, entry-gated invitational, structurally closer to AKC’s National Obedience Championship than to FCI’s World or Section Winner Championship, which fields national teams against each other.
FAQ
How Does Crufts Differ From AKC or FCI?
The Kennel Club runs a longer class ladder (seven core tiers instead of three) and lets handlers progress by wins or by accumulated points. AKC and FCI each run three classes with their own separate progression and titling rules. See the comparison above for the full breakdown.
Do You Need to Win at Crufts to Become an Obedience Champion?
No. Three Obedience Certificates from any Championship show earns the title. Winning the Kennel Club Obedience Championship at Crufts is one route to Ob Ch, not the only one.
Can Any Breed Compete in Kennel Club Obedience?
Yes. The 2025 Crufts display alone names Dachshunds, Bernese Mountain Dogs, and Staffordshire Bull Terriers as regular competitors, alongside the Border Collies shown performing.
How Do I Start If I’ve Never Competed Before?
Introductory and Pre-Beginners are built for this, reward-permitted and low-stakes. The Good Citizen Dog Scheme’s Special Pre-Beginner Obedience Stakes is a genuine, low-pressure entry point too, with regional heats feeding a final held at Crufts itself.
Curious what obedience training looks like for your own dog, competition or not? Talk to PetCoach’s team about a plan built around what your dog actually needs.
