BTCA National Specialty Performance
Eight Choices… One City
Your insider’s guide to all BTCA Performance Events in Louisville, KY
NOTE: Premiums are available online – https://btca.com/silverwood-premiums/
We’ve rounded up eight outstanding performance events to highlight for you. From competitive AKC Obedience and Rally Trials to individual Temperament and Fetch Tests, fun group fitness walks, Canine Good Citizenship and Trick Evaluations and a practice scent work session, each offering something unforgettable.
The FITDog Walk will be Thursday evening and the other performance events will be Friday, 10/30/26, starting at 8:00am. Crown Plaza Hotel, Louisville, KY
AKC Rally® is a team sport where you and your dog navigate, side-by-side, through a course of 10-20 different signs. The signs indicate a skill for your dog to perform, like sit or down. You and your dog move continuously throughout the course with a clear sense of teamwork. Rally is about working happily together while performing the necessary skills. (First entry $30, second dog $25, Cheryl Tisdale, Judge).
Obedience trials demonstrate the dog’s ability to follow specified routines and emphasize the usefulness of the dog as a companion dog. The objective is to recognize dogs that have been trained to behave in the home, in public places, and in the presence of other dogs in a manner that will reflect credit on the sport of obedience at all times and under all conditions (Entry $30, Cheryl Tisdale, Judge).
AKC Rally & Obedience
AKC Canine Good Citizen & AKC TRICK Dog
Canine Good Citizen is a 10-skill test that identifies dogs with good manners and responsible dog ownership.
Tricks are behaviors that are designed to entertain others. AKC Trick Dog ranges from very simple novice tricks such as teaching your dog to get in a box on cue, to complex tricks that are several behaviors chained together in one exciting sequence. ($20 per test , Julie Simpson and Susan Belden, Evaluators).
The ATT tests how a dog reacts to a variety of stimuli. Desirable traits are that the dog will be emotionally stable, inquisitive, cooperative, appropriately social for its breed, biddable and demonstrates the ability to recover from a startling situation in a reasonable amount of time.
AKC Fetch titles are fun to earn and can be used as a required AKC title for earning the Gold level of AKC FIT DOG. AKC Fetch is a pass-fail noncompetitive test. The four levels of titles (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Retriever) assess the ability of the dog to retrieve. In the Advanced and Retriever levels, the dog must respond correctly to signals. There is also a memory component in Advanced and Retriever because a retrieving bumper or ball is dropped (or thrown) behind a blind where it cannot be seen. ($25 per test, Cheryl Tisdale and Julie Simpson, Judges).
AKC TEMPERAMENT Tests
AKC FETCH Tests
AKC FITDog Walk
AKC Novice Scent Work Elements
AKC FITDog titles were designed to provide a structured, individualized fitness plan that you and your dog can do together. There are three levels of AKC fitness titles – Bronze (FITB), Silver (FITS) and Gold (FITG). Each title requires a specific number of activity points to be completed, which varies based on title level. ($20 donation for documentation).
For Bull Terriers who have imprinted the Birch odor, there will be four AKC Novice Scent Work elements (container, interior, buried and exterior) to practice “searching for the source” Friday afternoon after the Annual Membership Meeting. ($0.00 FREE!).
