Obedience in Russia

Here in Russia obedience started in 1998 when first participant from Russia took part in world championship in Helsinki. So this year we celebrate 10th anniversary!
But obedience develops slowly. We have about 20 sportsmen in international obedience class (called elite in some countries) and very few dogs in the first level. Reasons for that:
1. National kind of obedience is very strong in Russia. And rules of it allows training with strong corrections (more, it's much easier to train dog for that sport with strong correction because speed and willingness of dog is not judged). So it doesn't require any progress from trainers and instructors, they do not believe in positive training and do not want to learn anything new. Some clubs tried to do FCI obedience but failed with their methods and instead of changing something in their training returned to the "old" school. And it's only in Moscow where all progressive methods are available. Far from Moscow no one even tries to.
2. First level obedience is not official. So no one is interested in training dogs for that except fans of sports. And more experienced sportsmen prefer to train dogs directly to international level. The problem we are trying to solve now - we do not like rules of first level and wish to make ideal ones and only after it struggle to make them official.
3. We had very few competitions - one CACIOb=national championship, one almost cup of Russia (of Moscow, actually, because there is one club outside Moscow and one person in another town doing obedience in Russia) - and that's all. May be one or two club competitions in a year. It does not stimulate new sportsmen to train (first level competitions were ONCE a year!) and experienced sportsmen to train regularly (if you have next competitions in 6 months, you'll start to prepare 2 months before, leaving your dog for 4 months!) Now we develop a new system of selection which require at least one competition in a month.

Existing system:
we have one big indoor competition in a year - CACIOb held in February at biggest dog show "Eurasia". Before 2009 it was a national championship also. Two years in a row it was judged by Johann Kurzbauer - our appreciation and thankfullness!! We got a lot of valueable information! A difficulty of this competition is fatal lack of time - we usually have only several hours on main ring (usually we have to end our competition at 13 or 14). So last year the decision was made to leave the ring after the 2nd "zero". So a mixed breed dog won, because she performed all exercises with rather low points (241 points). And if you got 2nd zero on second exercise you can't see what your dog will do further - you just leave the ring. That was too tough, and that competition was a main for selection of the national team (our national team is selected by chief trainer, not by rating). After our failure in Stockholm chief trainer allowed us to suggest system of selection to EURASIA - not to national team yet. So in February 2009 only top 12 dogs will take part in CACIOb.
All dogs, mixed breed and without pedigree among them, are allowed to compete. Of course, national team is formed only from dogs officially allowed to take part in FCI WC.
We have three official judges, one of them is not engaged in obedience so she is not interested in judging, the second trains her young dog so in spring she'll start to compete again - and only one judge is left No one wants to be a judge - everyone wants to compete. We have the same in agility
Positive sides - level of our dogs and sportsmen increased significantly in last even 2 years, we have several brilliant young dogs. And it's first time when we work alltogether for sports benefit, not training alone and waiting for someone who will do it for us.
So I think that 2009 will be a decisive year for obedience development.
What about your country? We need to share information to develop our favourite sports!

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