The Judge's Debriefing By Terry Elger The 2016 AKC Invitational finals course! Not your everyday course or trial when it comes right down to it. This is one of the showcase events in AKC agility. Only the top five dogs in each breed get invited to participate. For some of the more popular breeds this event is the culmination of a year-long struggle to get to the top five in the standings for their breed. What all this means is that you will have a large number of dogs and handlers at this event who are very experienced. These handlers and dogs have also run four clean rounds over the last two days to earn the right to be in the finals. So, what do you give them as the final test of the year? You can see my test in Figure 1. A few more thoughts on how I arrived at this course. I am always cognizant of the challenges for bigger and faster dogs; it is not much fun for those dogs to always have something right in their face. I love to watch their eyes light up when you give them room to run. I also wanted to stay true to my "style" of course design. I prefer subtle challenges that can make the difference between first and second place. You won't see too many pinwheels but you will certainly see a 180° turn. Plus I also like to vary the distances between obstacles. 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 16 5 90 90 6 4 80 7 80 1 1 1 17 15 3 70 70 8 60 60 1 50 50 14 11 2 10 9 1 40 40 1 30 30 13 12 20 18 20 1 10 10 20 30 AKC Agility Invitational Round 5, Standard - Finals December 18, 2016 Designer/Judge: Terry Elger 40 50 60 10 70 80 90 I would like to thank the AKC for the opportunity to design and judge the finals course this year. It was fun and exciting. I also would like to offer my congratulations to the winners this year and all who competed throughout the weekend. 12 Clean Run | April 17