THE RULES WILL BE ATTACHED TO THE GOOGLE GROUP FOR MEMBER REVIEW AND TO MEMBERS ONLY.  UNABLE TO COPY TO THE NEWS ARTICLES ON WEB SITE. 

Article II, Section G and Article III, Section B4 have been revised.  The change to Section G of article II is to clear up confusion as to who has to be a member, when a handler runs another person’s dog, in order for the dog to accumulate Dog of the Year points.  The rule now states that only the handler must be a member prior to going to the post.

The Board of Directors was approached by handlers that primarily run cattle dogs requesting that Article III, Section B4 be amended.  As it previously existed, if a dog has run in an open cattle dog trial, the dog would be classified as and Open TSDA dog.  The argument is that an open cattle dog is not the same caliber as an open sheep dog.  The request was to allow open cattle dogs to run in open ranch class.  The board discussed and elected to keep the cattle dog classification as an “open” dog, but added a drop down provision for open cattle dogs to move from open class to open ranch, having to return to open after earning 16 points.

The board intends to vote on these changes prior to the annual meeting in Bowie, no earlier than 48 hours of this message being posted, as required by the rules.